EFFECT OF VITAMINS C AND E INTAKE ON BLOOD ... - EuroJournals

European Journal of Social Sciences - Volume 2, Number 1 (2006)
depth of poverty were higher in rural areas than in urban ( Ogwumike 2001) while Adelabu (2001)
found poverty to be widespread among people with low education, unstable employment,
unemployment, low status job and absence of material possession all these factors are prevalent in and
typical of rural areas.
The marginalization of the rural areas through urban biased development policies is also largely
responsible for high incidence of poverty in the rural areas.
Table1: Percent of Population below the Poverty Line in African Countries, Early 1990s.
Country Rural % Urban %
Cameroun 71 25
Cote d’ Ivoire 77 23
Gambia 66 33
Ghana 94 19
Guinea-Bissau 58 24
Kenya 41 20
Lesotho 54 55
Madagascar 37 44
Malawi 63 10
Mali n.a. 50
Nigeria 78 34
Tanzania 59 61
Uganda 57 38
Zaire 76 32
Zambia 85 46
Source: Clearer and Donovan 1995.
At least 50 percent of the poor in Africa were from far east African countries and Nigeria.
.Both secondary and tertiary graduates and school-drop-outs rush to the urban centers because of
unrealistic expectations of gainful employment in the cities and because of the hopeless rural
alternatives. Invariably, most of them are unable to be gainfully employed or unemployable (Adelabu
1981). According to Omideyi (2000) the decisions of the rural dwellers to migrate are usually informed
primarily by economic considerations particularly when they are unable to satisfy their aspirations
within the existing opportunity structure in their locality. She further said that rural–urban migration
still persists even in the face of worsening urban unemployment and prospects of better living in the
rural agricultural areas . The number of the rural poor is said to be roughly twice that of the urban poor,
while the depth of poverty is more than double in rural areas (The World Bank 1996). These rural
dwellers who are predominantly farmers, who though hardworking are producers whose output and
earnings are principally from agricultural activities, are inversely proportional to the efforts they put to
their work. This is because they lack the adequate infrastructures such as good roads, transportation
and credit facilities needed to promote their products and trade. The consequence of this is low or poor
socio-economic status of the rural households (Adelabu 2001).
One of the broad aims of secondary education as stipulated in the National Policy on
Education is “preparation” for useful living, but there is no evidence that the curriculum and training in
the secondary schools have fulfilled this objective. The secondary schools have failed in producing
students who can be useful to themselves and to their immediate community. This is because according
to Baike (2002), the educational system seems to be turning out graduates faster than the economy can
give them job, hence a large scale unemployment of the graduates. Observation had shown that the
education given to both the urban and rural students is to make them dependent on being employed as
workers or job seekers. The consequences of this is a rural-urban exodus which shifted the burden of
poverty to the urban areas yet according to Adelabu (2001) the cycle of poverty seems unbroken
among the rural population where poverty is passed from generation to generation. Where job is
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