NEW YORK -- Among the issues highlighted by the 2002 "State of World Population: People, Poverty and Possibilities," released by the United Nations Population Fund on Dec. 3, is the impact of poverty on education and, consequently, health -- particularly that of women of reproductive age. According to the report, although overall access to basic education has risen markedly over the past decade in many developing countries, poor children are still less likely to attend school, less likely to be enrolled in school and more likely to repeat grades than those who come from wealthier families.

There is widespread agreement that primary school should become universal early in this century, but the differences in educational attendance and attainment according to economic status show that the poor are much further away from achieving this goal than those better off economically.

There are several reasons to explain this gap. It is harder for poor children to have easy access to schools, since schools tend to be concentrated in cities and areas where only better-off families reside. The physical availability of schools, though, is not the most critical factor in most developing countries.