What Happens When People are Uneducated, Poorly Educated, or Undereducated?

(a longer than usual blog post because it's a critical issue)

Do you take education for granted?  Do you value education?  Do you not see the merit in being educated? When people and countries don’t focus on education for everyone, the effects are longterm.  I’m not referring to just higher education, such as what universities provide, or to just trade schools where employable skills are learned. And, I’m not simply referring to going through compulsory 1-12 years of education.  What happens when people aren’t educated, are undereducated, or are poorly educated in foundational learning, life skills, and respectful appropriateness?

According to Dr. Chris Drew, “Lack of education has serious effects on everyone, not only people who are under-educated. People who lack education have trouble getting ahead in life, have worse health and are poorer than the well-educated…  Across the world, 264.3 million school children, adolescents and youth are not in school. We’re getting more of these children into school, but there’s still a long way to go.  These children who are under-educated will likely suffer from long-term side effects that may limit their quality of life. There are…major effects of lack of education that cause real worry to us all (https://helpfulprofessor.com/lack-of-education/ ).

What is foundational learning?  According to studies done by the World Bank Group, foundational learning “…includes basic literacy, numeracy, and socio-emotional skills.… They also foster social and emotional growth, cognitive development, and civic engagement. These skills are critical, helping today’s children become tomorrow’s productive people” (https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/education/brief/foundational-learning).  We can add other aspects of learning as foundational:

• critical thinking to question for discovering truth, to uncover facts, to discern moral and ethical issues, to avoid being fooled by biases, misinformation, manipulators/liars/gaslighters/propaganda-mongers

• identifying fallacies to logic to avoid being taken by politicians, media, corporate babble, cults, and other people’s biases

• research to discover facts/truth by using ethical/high-quality data/without bias/valid findings that can be confirmed through reliable and cross-checked sources

• identifying strengths to find out what we are good at/like to do early and often to explore areas of passion that many lead to satisfying life’s work

• healthy habits to learn how to eat and drink for optimum health, how to maintain personal hygiene, to know bodily functions, to learn healthy and safe sexuality

• communication skills including conflict/misunderstanding resolution to learn how to resolve disagreements in respectful ways, to learn how to say what you mean and mean what you say in respectful ways, to adjust communications to the person or situation

• making and maintaining healthy relationships with friends, family, and lovers

• exposure to the arts to boost creativity, improve emotional well-being, bring innovation into everyday thinking, enhances problem-solving skills, encourages social connections, provides a sense of accomplishment and outlet for personal expression, can connect individuals and the community to areas of inspiration

• decision making skills that will affect personal and societal well being

• kindness, compassion, empathy toward others and to self

• interdependence (See my blog post on this for more on why this is an essential skill: https://www.reimaginelifecoach.com/post/dependence-independence-interdependence.)

• cultivation of curiosity throughout life, not just in childhood - this is an element of critical thinking

• cultural manners & how to treat others with respect, tolerance, openness, and caring

• financial literacy to know how to use money and how to make money work for us, how to invest, how to budget for our expenses

• career exploration matching strengths & interests & talents to individuals, resume-building, marketing to locate work, interviewing for jobs

• mindfulness & meditation to learn to feel gratitude and to learn how to de-stress/maintain or return to a calm state

• variety of philosophies - If people don’t know what ‘fascism’ vs. what ‘anti-fascism’ is, for example, how can they distinguish them?

• other basic life skills such as how to prepare meals, how to do laundry, how to manage time, how to eat healthily, how to exercise for physical/mental/emotional/spiritual health, how to use simple tools to fix things, birth control, parenting, managing relationships

What happens if there is a lack of solid education? Dr. Drew highlights these key areas: “Major effects of lack of education include: poor health, lack of a voice, shorter lifespan, unemployment, exploitation, and gender inequality” (https://helpfulprofessor.com/lack-of-education/).  Poorly, uneducated, or undereducated people are easier to control and to hoodwink:

• "The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant" (Maximilien de Robespierre, a French lawyer/statesman and influential figure in the French Revolution).,

• "You can rule ignorance; you can manipulate the illiterate; you can do whatever you want when a people are uneducated, so that goes in line with corrupt business and corrupt politics”( will.i.am, singer with the Black Eyed Peas).,

• "The most violent element in society is ignorance” (Emma Goldman, activist, anarchist — one who sought to abolish authoritarianism).

Why did Mr. Trump say, “Smart people don't like me" (qtd. in https://www.rgj.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/17/trump-quote-fact-checks/86116511007/)?  And, why do his supporters not feel dissed by this statement? Poorly, uneducated, or undereducated people are easier to control and to hookwink.  When people use critical thinking skills, know how to discern facts from propaganda and lies, question what is said and done, they are more difficult to control.  Why do you think the current regime is cutting education funds and removing the value/importance of education? Poorly or undereducated people are easier to control.

Longterm effects of the lack of education/incomplete education involve: (Some of these were mentioned earlier in this essay; here, they are discussed more.)

• “ Poor Health - Healthcare of the general population is a major reason education is important. Primary education is important for learning about personal health and hygiene. Education is how health professionals and governments communicate important information to society. In other words, a person’s education level is a key social determinant of their health outcomes.

• Lack of a Voice - People who are undereducated do not have the skills or confidence to speak up for themselves. This is a part of the reason many women remain oppressed in the developing world. Girls who are undereducated are married young – often still as children – and forced into domestic chores rather than education. These women find it very hard to speak up about their own situation and find ways to improve their lives. They can’t find jobs, are reliant on their husbands’ incomes, and often can’t read or write which prevents them from self-educating.[Listen carefully to our current ‘leaders’ who want less education and want to lower the child marriage age.  They don’t want children, especially girls, educated because they will be easier to control.]

• Shorter Lifespan - Less educated people don’t live as long as more educated people, the International Monetary Fund’s Fiscal [IMF] Monitor Report shows. According to the report, less educated men statistically live between 4 and 14 years less than their well educated counterparts. According to the IMF, this shortened lifespan for the poor has a drag effect on national productivity. So in effect, we all suffer when the poor get sick and die.

• A Poverty Trap - [is] the inability to escape poverty due to lack of resources. Children of poorer people are more likely to be poor themselves. This is often known as the intergenerational poverty trap. One of the only ways to escape the poverty trap is through education. If you’re not educated, you are not likely to escape. And the problem isn’t only lack of education. It’s also the quality of education. A report from the University of Stellenbosch found that children in South Africa who attend poorer public schools suffer from low teacher quality and lack of resources. This can keep children in poverty despite the fact that they attended school.

• Unemployment [underemployment] - Everywhere in the world, jobs are [usually] given out to the most qualified people. [In the current regime in the USA, however, this is not the case of the federal government’s ‘leaders.’] Educational credentials are one major way in which employers choose between job applicants. If you don’t have that high school diploma or university degree, chances are you’ll drop to the bottom of the pile. Here’s the facts.

• The [Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development] OECD found that across all OECD nations: 

• 83% of people with a university degree are employed;

• 74% of people with an upper secondary or non-university postsecondary education (e.g. a trade qualification) are employed;

• 56% of people without an upper secondary education are employed.

• Exploitation - People who have not been educated [, were poorly education, or undereducated] may have to resort to terrible types of work just to survive. In a world of limited jobs, those with an education get first pickings of the safer and more secure work. Girls in the third world who lack education are some of the most vulnerable.

• Gender Inequality - Gender inequality can be a massive barrier to education for women. Gender inequality can be a massive barrier to education for women. Furthermore, women with a lower education are less likely to raise their voice when it comes to political and community issues that affect them.  Women who have children after receiving a secondary school education tend to have healthier babies. The United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative argues that these women’s higher levels of education means ‘they will know how to properly care for’ their babies.  Education is also a space where gender stereotypes are challenged, which may also lead to decreased gender inequality. If girls and boys are educated side-by-side, such stereotypes may also disintegrate.

• A Brake on Economic Growth - Countries that have a more educated population will have more sustainable economic growth over the long term than those with a less educated population. This is particularly evident now that we live in a globalized world. Nations are competing against each other for economic dominance. If a nation is more educated, the nation’s productivity is higher and its workers are more innovative. The nation attracts higher-paying jobs in growth industries. By contrast, nations that are poorer have to attract lower-paying industries… While many third-world countries can grow their economies rapidly by lowering labor standards and attracting industry, there is a cap on this growth. That’s why China is investing so heavily in tech and education. They know that if they want to continue to grow at a rapid rate, they need to transition to the high-paying industries of the future.

• Inability to Make Smart Political Decisions - If too many people in a society lack the ability to think critically about the big challenges of the future, we won’t collectively make smart political decisions. Education is about more than money. We need to educate our society so they can make democratic decisions like: Who should I vote for in the next election? Is climate change action important?Is it good for me that my taxes are spent on foreign aid? A politically uninformed society may lack the knowledge to make smart decisions. Or, they might be easily duped by a smooth-talking populist. Perhaps this is why one-sentence slogans tend to win out in our political discourse. The logic here is simple: dumb it down for the [uneducated/undereducated] out there. Don’t treat them like adults. Don’t have an informed debate. As Alex Lickerman [qtd. from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-in-this-world/201205/the-real-dangers-of-poor-education] argues: ‘The solutions our political leaders seek for our most pressing problems are largely determined by which are most popular. And which are most popular is largely determined by our population’s ability to understand the problems.’

• It’s Harder to Raise Children - If you lack an education yourself, raising children becomes more difficult. And not just because you’re more likely to be poor. Issues uneducated parents face include:

  • Not knowing how to seek help or teach yourself about raising children;

  • Inability to help your children with their homework;

  • You’re statistically more likely to be poor;

  • You’ll expose your children to less words.

    According to the American Psychological Association, this means:

  • Children of uneducated parents are behind their peers in cognitive capacity and literacy and numeracy levels;

  • Your children will have less financial literacy (they won’t be able to handle money as well);

  • Your children will struggle getting the right information about attending college [or making the decision to attend trade school].

• Your Job is About to Disappear Due to Automation - Think about the United States: manufacturing jobs have been on the decline for decades. The next big thing to go is truck driving as safe driverless trucks hit the road in the coming years. The Hill argues: ‘the largest shares of jobs that can be potentially lost belong to low-skill individuals who do low-income jobs’. Whether new jobs in new industries will emerge to replace the old ones is debatable. But the new jobs will likely require some form of education!” (https://helpfulprofessor.com/lack-of-education/).

Not everyone needs to go to college/university.  All people, however, need to be educated well, especially in critical thinking skills. What’s your opinion?  How does being well educated in the foundational skills, knowledge, and attitudes help individuals and societies flourish? Please share your stories, thoughts, insights, and suggestions by either commenting below this post if you are reading this on social media, or, if you are reading this through your email subscription, please share, by emailing me, at reimaginelife22@gmail.com.

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