Indian children take notes on wooden boards at an open school in Ramsnehi Ghat in...

Indian children take notes on wooden boards at an open school in Ramsnehi Ghat in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh on January 8. The poor who cannot afford to buy paper notebooks prefer the re-usable wooden boards. Until 1991 nearly 40 percent of the schools in India did not have a concrete building and 47.9 percent of country's 930 million people cannot read or write their names, count up to 100 or even recognise signs, the bare minimum necessary for them to be listed as literate. As every child in India is considered an extra earning hand, families often do not approve of spending money on education, they would rather have the child work and contribute to the family income.