ABSTRACT
Early on weekday mornings, often at lunchtimes, and again in the evening, the roads of most towns, villages and rural areas of the Third World are thronged with children going to or coming from school. They are happy, boisterous and noisy, shouting, laughing and playing, often in well-kept and neatly-pressed school uniforms that can seem at odds with the surrounding poverty of their families and villages. Their familiar presence is an indicator not only of the high proportion of the population in the school-age groups in most Third World countries, but of the massive presence and importance of schools and schooling. Schools are generally the most widespread of the services provided by government. There are, for example, usually far more schools than health posts, and they are more likely to be found in small communities and in the remotest settlements. Recent expansions of schools systems have been rapid, and there are still some children who for reasons of physical access or social and economic constraints are denied a place in school, but the majority of children in the Third World can now attend school for at least some of their school-age years. Demand is everywhere high and the popular thirst for education seems to assume enhanced life chances in the future to the children themselves and to their parents and communities.
