Most narrators had little education due to poverty. Now they are struggling to send their own children to school. Most feel education will enable their children to get jobs and look after their parents, despite the poor employment situation.
Warren and Benson describe how inadequate facilities are and how communities have often built their own classrooms, sometimes even providing the teaching.
Gilbert and Benson express the hope that educating their daughters will make them less vulnerable to “town life”, “peer pressure” and the risk of contracting HIV and AIDS.