Mexico City, February 9, 2023 - "You have to teach people how to fish and not give them the fish," is one of the sayings often used when talking about ending poverty. However, fighting poverty is not so simple. To discuss this complex issue, the High Performance Management Development Program for Educational Institutions (PAPDIE) of the Universidad PanamericanaDr. José Antonio Meade, Mexico's former Secretary of Foreign Affairs, was invited to give a lecture entitled Social Aspects of Education.
Eradicating poverty
During his lecture, Meade explained what poverty is, how to eradicate it and the role that education plays in combating it, because although income is a factor in strengthening the economy of Mexicans, he revealed that we should not limit ourselves to that dimension alone.
Fundamental rights and shortcomings
During his speech, he enunciated six fundamental rights to escape poverty that must be present in the daily experience of Mexicans today:
- Education.
- Health
- Social security.
- Housing quality and space.
- Basic services in the home.
- Food.
"A 2 million people in Mexico live in poverty with an intensity that is almost unimaginable," said Meade, but he clarified that, of the other 2 million, half live in the deprivation band: "30% have four deprivations or more, 12% five deprivations or more and 6% six deprivations or more."
He also stated: "Most of those living in extreme poverty do not have social security, 63% do not have access to basic services in their homes, i.e. water, electricity, drainage (...), 61% lack food (...), 57% do not have access to health, half of them to education and 38% do not have quality and space in their homes".
At the other extreme, he said, those who do not have any deprivation have the capacity to generate income above the welfare line, which confirms that "rights and poverty do have something to do with each other".
Educational backwardness
Speaking on the issue of educational backwardness, he indicated that it has two aspects:
a) Historical balance: people to whom the state had an obligation to provide access to education and who did not receive it, but who are no longer of age to attend the formal education system.
b) Flow: people of school age who have dropped out of school. It should be sought that this stream does not become larger.
"We are not building an influential society to the extent that we are not building an educated society," he said.
He also commented that of all the deficiencies, the most relevant is education, as he explained that having more educated people almost automatically leads the population to make better health, entrepreneurship and employment decisions, among many other more basic ones: "If education were more relevant, the rest of the deficiencies would also tend to be reduced" .
In this way, he concluded: "If we could transform just one deficiency so that the country could be better, the bet would be on education; it is the one that would allow us to have a more prosperous and influential Mexico".
