Poverty and the poor.

In Malaysia the poverty level was very high in the 1950s till 1970s. The poor hardly met their income with the needs. In the house holds of the poor, they had pillows and mat made of straws to sleep, some utensils to cook and little cloth.

Male children would go to school and the female would go but stop schooling early to help their parent.

School uniform was limited and the numbers of buttons in shirt do not match with holes with which the buttons are fixed. The differences were met with hooks.

Students had nothing to spend in school canteen.

That was the scenario in the whole country but even with such situations there were several successful people who had climbed the social hierarchy. Their parents had managed well the little they earned and had the mantle strength to withstand the poverty and send their children to further education.

Now the poverty looks different. It is often said that the poor is getting poorer and the rich is getting richer. This is the relative term. The poor now is richer then the poor of thirty years ago. Now the poor have television, motorcycle, hand phone etc. but they would look for aid, for the purpose of children education. It looks like the can effort all necessities and some luxury goods but only could not spend for children education. The state should take care of their education expenditure.

Poor of this kind are not poor by income but poor to enrich their knowledge. They will spend for entertainment, extravagance expenditure during festivals and on many others, but children education never being in their list.

It is their attitudes towards their children education make them poor. No investment is better thanon education. If the poor realizes this the next generation will never be poor.

The other parameters for education are :
Concern toward their children education. For concern one need to be rich. Even a poor can be concern.
Discipline of family. Do not mix with those who are not in similar wavelength of thought.
Fund management of the family even though it is small.

And many more which varies with situation.