Sometimes I wish my life had a erase/rewind button

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Getting books to pupil

Recently watched a debate on CNN-IBN about effectiveness of government programs on the state of social sector in India. In the midst of all the usual politicians calling for caste based quotas in private sector, Industry complaining about governmental restrictions, government quoting %age increases in budget as proof of progress came something that I think is one step that can actually help
Sunil Mittal of Bharti was mentioning that his firm is opening 200000 schools across India in mostly villages. While our SUV riding poor politicians might claim otherwise the fact is that most of the caste related distinctions are real issues in villages where group have to fight for meager resources. What can lift people out of the misery called villages is good educations and as survey after surveys indicate, government schools are simply not delivering.
If private firms can ensure that they have quality schools at village levels we can see that in another 10 years a lot more trained talent is available to industry. Agriculture simply cannot provide living to 60% of our billion strong population so this is an urgent demand of times. What can put a spanner is if government insists on quotas in teacher recruitments. If the argument of quota demanding segment is correct that the lower castes are not getting education because of bias or whatever we evidently cannot have enough trained teachers from the disadvantaged sections (if we don't have students from those sections how will we have teachers? ).
So if we don't get so shortsighted to put such spanners I can see maybe a million schools opening that provide quality education where the real disadvantaged sections of population lives and is denied opportunities. Modern education will not only provide job skills but can transform attitudes. I suggest the government gives incentives to industry to set up such schools. Something like if you spend 5% of your income to setup and operate schools you can deduct 5% from your taxes. Since the government will have to spend money on schools anyway and money comes from taxes, such an arrangement will not lead to any net revenue loss in long term. However what will happen is that instead of government directly running schools where as per an earlier PM's own admission only a meager portion of actual spend reaches the intended poor, the private sector can be held to a lot more stringent criteria.
Let their be a committee of educationists/NGOs/private sector participants who can evaluate the schools as some sort of a board. Only those schools which pass a certain level of quality accredition can claim tax exemption. Industry will have a stake in ensuring that the output of schools is good because we do have a severe talent crunch. The courses can be more vocational which should work for a large majority of rural families.
Its only by such direct action that we can achieve our potential. Let the work begin.

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