Literacy is essential for human growth and well-being. Not only is education extremely limited without it, but human lives depend on it. Mothers need to be literate in order to properly care for their children. Citizens need to be able to read in order to participate in voting and making contributions to society. Today, 61 million children are missing from primary school, contributing to the 775,000,000 of people world-wide who are illiterate. With half on these missing students being girls, a major public health crisis continues to develop. These girls will grow up to become illiterate mothers, and Illiterate mothers risk spreading diseases to their future children, such as HIV. Increased government spending on education is one possible solution. 21 developing countries spend more money on military than on education. In fact, decreasing military spending by 10% would increase the student population in these areas to 10%.