The End of Sunless Cities : End Global Poverty Sustainably through Radical Social Entrepreneurship and Tuition-Free Secondary-to-Community College Education for All

Today's technologically empowered youths, even those stuck in poverty, are the most informed and potentially the most powerful youths in human history. This current power revolution presents an enormous and unprecedented opportunity for us to end global poverty sustainably by the middle of this century. The financially handicapped youths of today are not looking for handouts; they are looking for opportunities to pull themselves out of poverty. But they need a broader educational foundation because the rapid growth in technology has reoriented the trajectory of economic growth from agro-based to production-based development, which requires skills that cannot be acquired in elementary school. Consequently, in the current technologically driven global economy, no nation has pulled itself out of poverty sustainably without acquiring a critical mass of at least 80% secondary school enrollment rate. Yet the average secondary school enrollment rate for low-income countries is 55.16% and in sub-Saharan Africa the rate is 49.55%; some countries have rates as low as 17.41% (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2014). In 2011, UNESCO announced that the inadequate funding of secondary school education in many low-income nations constitutes the greatest obstacle to progress in global education. Teach For Hope (TFH) is an education system designed by this author to dislodge the above obstacle, universalize secondary-to-community college education for all, empower youths with the skills that they need to enhance their entrepreneurship and employability, promote access to institutional financing, and facilitate youth's inclusion in the global market. TFH is financed by SEPSE, a self-financing system that does not require perpetual financial aid or parental financing or government funding.