Choice for me, inspection for you
Go to any seminar on education. Usually the speakers are
intellectuals, from the upper or middle class, city bred. The
discussion invariably veer towards state of education for the poor.
Soon people start talking about how bad government run schools are. Not
enough teachers, some places there aren’t any building to begin with,
no separate bathrooms for the girl children, so on and so forth. Right
after the wailing they volunteer with their suggestions.
- We must energise the bureaucracy
- We must encourage the ruling class to find its political will
- We must write a memo to the X (minster, secretary, President of India …)
- The poor, dalit, tribal must perform some rasta roko, dharna, ….
- The village BDO or some other petty government official needs to be empowered
- Government teachers need to be encouraged to a, b, c …
- We are all citizens of this country, those government schools are
our responsibility. Hence we need to inspect them ourselves and make
sure they are functioning properly - We should file a PIL
- Go to Delhi and go on a hunger strike in front of the Human Resource Ministry
- The list of recommendations go on and on.
Now instead of a seminar or conference on education if you were to
attend one on roads, hospitals or PDS, you will pretty much hear the
same recommendations.
Imagine if some of us were foolish enough to take these
recommendations seriously. How many of your waking hours will you spend
inspecting road, ration shops, government hospitals and schools?
Let us step back a bit. These government “services” are funded by
our taxes. We pay taxes for pretty much anything we buy or sell. On
pretty much on any income (especially if you are unlucky like me to be
drawing a salary and left with no avenue to evade taxes). Now my
employer pays my salary for doing work. That too in the employer’s
organisation. Not for inspecting other people’s work. So if I spend my
waking hours inspecting government work, filing RTI, etc. I don’t get
paid. If I don’t get paid, I don’t pay taxes. No taxes, no government
“services”.
Also, what about the people who get paid to do their job? And the
people who get paid to inspect, poke and probe the various government
“services”? Aren’t they getting paid to do all the things we are being
asked to duplicate?
Interestingly, no inspection is required for the goods and services
the speaker, i.e., for people like us – the middle, upper and rich
classer – enjoys. I hardly inspect my children’s school, give the
teacher and the principal a pep talk, inspect their accounting system
or pay scale. I visit it, yes. During one of my rare visits, if I find
one or more of the problems listed above, in my child’s school, what do
I do? I may talk to the manager/principal/headmaster once.
Since I am a patient man, I may explain things to them a second time. “Fix it or else”.
A third time? I take my children and find another school. My money
follows me. Whose lose is it? Mine or the school’s? Finding a new
school may not be easy. Sure. Nothing good in life is easy. But will my
children go uneducated? No!
I don’t have the time or the inclination for rasta roko. I like Mr
Kalam, our President. But I don’t have the time to write to him. Same
goes for the minister, bureaucrats, Supreme Court, PIL lawyers, well
wishers, do-gooders. I like you all. But I can take care of my family.
If I need your help I will ask. But don’t wait for me. Don’t hold your
breath.
Why is that so? Why don’t I need all these powerful, noble well
wishers? Because I have the resources to pay the tuition and rest of
the expenses. So the simple question is: if a poor dalit parent had the
money in her hand, would she need all these patrons and patronising
elite? No!
Why are there plenty of schools where I live. Because there are
plenty of people like me who can pay. Which means there are plenty of
people who have started schools to serve me and people like me.
What is news to a lot of people is that there are plenty of schools,
and increasingly so, around where poor live. Because, as the poor grow
less poor, in fact, the moment the poor is a little bit less poor, they
opt for private services, including private schools.
If the poor have access to the money that the tax payers set aside
to help the poor, they can use that money to access far better services
that the private sector is able to provide. Instead of funding
government services with taxes, empower the poor with it.
(What if the tax payer could give the money directly to the poor
person and get a tax credit? No need to send it to the government and
then redirecting it to the poor with all the leaks in the system. Pay
government for the services like defence that government is supposed to
do.)
Today, I have choice. You, if you are poor, have none. Soon, thanks
to the growing school choice movement in India, this will not be the
case.
For the first time in the history of our society, the poor will be
able to tell both the government and the private service providers,
“You dance to my tune I will give you this money that I have in my
hand. I will tell you how you should dance, when you should, and
quality of your dance. You also have to do it with a smile and a thank
you. If you cannot do that please move on. Next!”
Now wouldn’t that be real empowerment, real liberation for a change?