Sociologica

After a lot of pondering, i have come to the conclusion that education is the one thing India should concentrate on. Why ? Because it is the bedrock through which a lot of the subsidary problems can be solved. Take a whole lot of social problems :- Dowry, child marriage, untouchability etc. It is also something which will be economically beneficial to all in the long run. Human capital can act as accelators to growth of any economy. There are umpteen examples to show that countries that have emphasised on education. What we need today is investment in the primary education. The whole country will leapfrog if quality basic primary education is available in rural India. Later on, particularly in the second half of the 20th century, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other economies in East Asia followed similar routes and firmly focused on general expansion of education. Widespread participation in a global economy would have been hard to accomplish if people could not read or write, or produce according to specifications or instructions, or to have quality control.

Also what we do not need is more costly higher education. I am of the firm belief that those who want higher education should be prepared to pay the (higher) cost for it. So while we surely need more QUALITY higher education, it is best to let that be addressed by the market. (did you know that Harvard and MIT are private insititues ?).

The govt. should focus on providing basic quality eduction. In this context, i am a fan of the Panchayati Raj. Cutting all the platitutues, Panchayati raj at its core is decentralised decision making. The decision on how to operate a school in a remote village is not left to a disinterested underpaid babu. It is left to the 'democaratically' elected elders of the village - who now with the power to take decisions locally will have to be answerable to the electorate come polling time. In the centralised model, there was no accountability of wether classes were being conducted. Nobody could fire the teacher, nor raise his salary. Under Panchayati Raj, the same decision can be taken at the nest meeting of the elders.

So i believe that if i ever choose to do social service, i will contribute to the cause of rural primary education.