Obama should create global education fund

The first Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients of the Obama Administration were honored in August. Three of these “agents of change” honored by the President - Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson and Muhammad Yunus - have called for the creation of a global fund for education to ensure every child has a chance to go to school.

Seventy-five million children are still not in school in the world's poorest countries. More than half are girls, and some 40 million are in countries affected by war or conflict.

By several global declarations, education is a basic human right and essential to the development of healthy children, strong communities, and productive countries. Studies show that each additional year of education for a girl beyond grade three or four will lead on average to 20 percent higher wages and a 10 percent decrease in the risk of her own children dying of preventable causes.

Prevention of HIV/AIDS is so strongly associated with school attendance that education has been called a social vaccine against the virus.

President Obama should heed the call of the moral leaders he has just honored and make good on his campaign commitment to create a global fund for education.

Judy McDowell

Cedar Rapids