The word poverty can be defined using different wording depending on the context being referred to. However, all these definitions can be summarized as the lack of sufficient resources needed or desired. Families have needs and want that determine their quality and style of life. Family needs are categorized into basic needs and secondary needs. The basic needs are crucial for survival, and they include food, shelter, and clothing. For families with low income, also referred to as low-income families, almost all their incomes are spent in satisfying basic needs. They barely afford luxurious secondary needs. Poverty hurts the academic success and progress of students. It should be noted that education gives students from low-income families to break the cycle and deliver their families from the cycle. At the same time, the academic achievements of these students suffer greatly from lack of the necessary resources to support their education.
Impacts of Poverty on Student Success
The educational achievements of students from low socioeconomic families suffer due to the following reasons: They often lack school fees to support their being in school, they lack money to pay for their fares and other school activities and services, and the emotional and psychological troubles that they suffer from due to poverty.
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To join and stay in school, students must be able to pay school fees in time. Students from well-off families pay their fees in time and stay in school most of the times. However, poor parents spend almost all their incomes on food, shelter, and clothing, saving little to support their children’s education. Students from these families either pay fees late or fail to pay at all. The consequence is the absence from school most of the time. These students have a lot of discontinuity in their learning process, and this reduces their performance. Very bright students can catch up while the rest ends up underachieving academically.
Besides school fee, students also need money for other school-related utilities such as fare, meals, and other services that are not catered for in the fees. Some schools cater for the transport of their students and include the transport money in the fees. However, most of such schools are attended by students from high socioeconomic families due to the high amount of school fees. The rest of the students either walk or use buses to and from schools. Poverty leads to frequent lack of fare making the students to either walk to school or miss school. The absence leads to a lack of consistency in learning, thereby, reducing the ability to concentrate and perform in classwork.
Lack of money to buy lunch or breakfast in school psychologically affects students. Schools have break periods when students are allowed to buy snacks or eat the foods they carried from home. In schools with students from low-income families, it is common to find students with no meals or money hidden in some corner looking frustrated, sad, and lonely. These feelings are dangerous, and they lead to a lack of concentration in class. Even for students who understand their socioeconomic situations, the act of seeing others enjoy what they lack causes psychological torture.
Low socioeconomic status has a negative emotional and psychological impact on students especially if they share schools with those from high-income families. Even if the students can afford to stay in school and buy all the meals, the status itself will still disturb their emotions. Poverty is associated with poor health conditions. Physical appearance is one of the sources of psychological disturbance among school-age children. They often feel inferior to the other students.
Application Strategies
Students from low socioeconomic families need all kinds of support to facilitate their economic behavior and success. Schools can coordinate with parents and community members to ensure that these students improve their academic achievements as well as reducing the detrimental behavioral outcomes. These strategies include rigorous curricula activities and student-centered strategies. Some of the strategies include expressing high expectations through engagement, enhancing family involvement in the learning process, focusing on the family and students’ strengths, seeking community involvement.
Through student-centered learning, low-income students get the required attention and motivation to learn. These students underperform because of their inability to catch up with the high-income students. Some teachers fail to consider their socioeconomic conditions as they treat the whole class equally. When classes are learner-centered, every student can perform to their full potential because they have teachers who understand them better and assist psychologically. Family involvement is another strategy that helps the students to cope up and perform to their full potential. After understanding the socioeconomic status of the families, there are various strategies that can help to ensure that the students stay in school and get the necessary learning resources. For example, school administrations can help parents to plan their fee payment in a friendly and attainable way to avoid absence.
Community involvement is important in raising education achievements in low socioeconomic schools. These schools lack some basic learning facilities needed by students. Through community involvement, money can be raised to acquire resources such as books and desks. Community members can also pool up resources to build facilities like playgrounds, modern classrooms, subsidize school fees, sponsor some students and even hire teachers. Promotion of education is in low-income areas; therefore, a collective responsibility that involves the teachers, school administrations, parents, and the community.
Reflection
Throughout my experience in the field of education, I have seen students from poor families succeed and rescue their families from the cycle of poverty. Also, I have seen bright students drop out of school because of poverty. The state of poverty affects both psychological and monetary ability to perform in class. Also, most low-income students believe that their status is an inability that cannot allow them to compete with other students. This is a perception that must change. This concept study is relevant because it presents the various strategies through which low-socioeconomic students can be lifted to achieve higher academic success.
Educators are at a prime position of initiating and promoting the necessary changes. First of all, educators have been trained to provide quality education in both high-income and low-income communities. They understand that the state of poverty affects perceptions and beliefs on education. Their intervention should involve changing the beliefs that it is difficult to excel academically in the poverty state. By using their knowledge and skills, educators can advise parents on how to keep students in school with low-income as well as teaching the community members on the need to support education and eliminate their poverty state.
Conclusion
Poverty affects the ability of students to achieve academic success. It leads to continued absence from school due to lack of fees and fares. Poverty also causes psychological disturbance to students. All these are factors that negatively affect their concentration ability in class. However, it is possible to perform irrespective of the socioeconomic status. It takes an intervention from all the stakeholders such as teachers, parents, and community members. Many students have rescued their families and communities from poverty cycle by succeeding in their education and getting good jobs and income ideas. Teachers are trained to teach and promote education in all areas. Therefore, every change must be started by the teachers.
