Tag: Equal opportunity

18th July 2014

Swedish “school voucher” system is guaranteed to fail since it is badly designed

A commentator pointed out a recent Slate article showing that the Swedish voucher system is a failure. I had one quick look and dismissed the Swedish model outright. It simply is NOT well designed. If you don't implement fundamental principles into it, it just won't work.

This view is further confirmed by a quick extract from a 2011 article, below:

"a system where funding follows the student regardless of their parents’ income. If a school chooses to be part of the voucher system, it has to be all-inclusive, provide national standards and have its performance monitored. And it has no right to charge its students fees beyond the voucher." [Source]

Results are poor – as expected.

A proper design would include key elements outlined in BFN.

The Swedish system is a sham. Don't point to this sham and tell me that the voucher system doesn't work!

First design the system properly and then let's talk.

ADDENDUM

Haven't reviewed this document but will do so: School vouchers in Sweden by Jan Sjunnesson

Did vouchers cause the decline in Swedish schools? by Tyler Cowen

This article in The Economist discusses the Swedish experiment: Education reform: A good choice?

The School Choice Myth That Just Won’t Die

20th July 2012

Join the debate on whether there should be reservations

I chanced upon this discussion on the We DEMAND Freedom and Good Governance! Facebook group which is open to the public. Join this group and join in the debate.

Current discussion:

Vishal Kumar Singh The middle class does not like reservations.Reservations are fundamentally wrong. But, if there is no equality of opportunity then there is no moral case against reservation. And equality of opportunity is a joke in India. In today's India it is impossible that your kid and your maid's kid are on equal footing. India needs strong policies for creating equality of opportunity and then only can politically a case be made to give away with reservations.
Rohini Khuperkar agreed.. unequal opportunities create possibility of reservations..
Yazdy Rusi Palia Vishal, how is this achieved? Who pays for it? This sounds so much like a Socialist slogan. I am at a loss. Equal opportunity, according to me is an arrangement where the opportunity is there but one has to earn it. I am not against the maids children studying with my kids but either I pay for it or arrange for a private sponsor who would bear the expenses. Certainly, you do not mean that the state bears it?
Manjit Kaur For equal opportunities some one has to pay for the other. This is quite fair in a democratic set up. Otherwise how will the society develop? There are thousands who are blessed by the properties of their ancestors and millions who are from poor families. The gap has to be bridged some where.
Yazdy Rusi Palia The question is should it be by force?
Manjit Kaur We are robbed of in Government Offices daily by force. Does any body complain????
Yazdy Rusi Palia Do two wrongs make a right Manjit?
Vishal Kumar Singh The state will bear it. Let me make explain more. We all will agree that we are all interconnected as a society. It is in our interest that we have capable people in a society. Capable people who can sell their skills to each other. Equa…
Anil Sharma Vishal, I am glad that you have made this assertion about equal opportunity. I have come to believe now that FTI would need to invest mostly into this policy area to have any realistic chance at electoral politics. This is the harsh reality of Indian society and politics in general. The problem of implementation of equal opportunity is the rampant discrimination in Indian society at every level from region, religion, caste, colour, language, gender and the list goes on.
Yazdy Rusi Palia Anil, am disappointed. This will only dilute the principle of the primacy of individual rights. As I understand, if there is a market, people will create the products necessary, in this case, quality education. The problem is government controls. Let control over education be lifted and there will be thousands of entrepreneurs who will come into the field to give quality education.
What disappointed me most in your remark is that "I have come to believe now that FTI would need to invest in this area ——- to have any chance at electoral politics in general". In short to get a chance at electoral politics we dilute our principles of liberty? I am disappointed.
Vishal Kumar Singh Also we need to see what the situation is today. India is completely socialist today with reservation as policy completely entrenched. The only way to reverse reservation policy is to create a fair policy of equal opportunity. Even this is going to face severe resistance.
In short we need to base our actions on what the reality is today. And the reality is that we are deep into socialism and the only way out is equal opportunity framework.
Yazdy Rusi Palia Equal opportunity is completely ok. However, when you say the government creates equal opportunity, there is something wrong there. First of all we have to define what is meant by equal opportunity.
I firmly believe that if the government walks out of education, thousands of small entrepreneurs will come into the picture. You already have the example of the number of computer institutes in every small town. There will be competition in education and the cost of education will come down and the quality will improve as soon as the government stops control of schools. As it is, people are willing to pay heavily to get their children admitted to English medium schools. Once the controls are removed there will be thousands of such schools operating from small premises.
Equal opportunities should mean open up the schools, let there be no education department in the government and quality education will be available in plenty.
Vishal Kumar Singh Let me qualify my statement- I am not saying that state creates equal opportunity. I am saying state is the only entity that can be made responsible for creating equal opportunity. It will be perfectly alright if state follows the policy of privatizing to create equal opportunity.
The point is there is no other entity which can be made responsible for equal opportunity. Charity is okay, but is not responsibility of anyone to be charitable. You cannot demand anyone to be charitable, but state can be demanded to provide equal opportunity.
Beyond who is responsible, we all will agree that all of us deserve to have equal opportunity. We as society want every one to have a fair chance to do well. My son and my maid's son should get access to good education. There will neither be reservation for my maid's son or my son.
This is only about fairness as a system. No body is guaranteeing the outcomes with reservation. Every one gets access to good primary education and then it up to individual what he becomes.
Yazdy Rusi Palia You have now made things clear Vishal. Actually just removing government role in education will do.
Anil Sharma Palia saab, I am currently working in the education sector in a small area of UP. Let me state that for all practical purposes people have choice like never before in education sector. We did a survey in Noida, Ghaiziabad and Meerut area and within 60km radius there are more than 65 institutions that provide a degree in IT. The competition in education sector is so fierce that private schools, colleges and institutions are struggling to fill the spaces; even the best of private institutions have only about 70-75% seats filled.
But the problem is of affordability and a huge mass of children cannot afford to get to these private schools/colleges. In my village there is a private school that charges about Rs. 100 fee per month but there are lots of families that can't even afford this. By the way 99% of these kids are from lower castes. They send their kids to the govt. run primary school. One way this can be fixed is to close down the govt. run primary school and give parent the vouchers to have the choice to send their kids to private schools. A case for equal opportunity.
I hope you must have seen the Satyamev Jayte program a week or so ago on caste discrimination, here is the link if you haven't watched it: http://www.satyamevjayate.in/issue10/
See the story of little girls from lower castes who have to clean the toilets in school. This kills the soul. Tell me how would she get a good education without discrimination?
Palia saab, I have lived in the villages and I can say with some good experience that the problem is getting worse.ouchability – Satyamev Jayate
Yazdy Rusi Palia AS bhai, in the first sentence you state that things are better and people have lots of choices. The last two lines you claim things are getting bad to worse. I am confused Anil Sharma.
I did watch that episode of Satyamev Jayate. It is horrifying. However, what is your point ? The one suggestion that you make is reasonable if subsidy is acceptable. The other way could be tax incentives to industry to contribute in education.
I do not believe that these children should be humiliated by charity. If however some of the arm chair critics would spend 3 months each in the countrysides especially retired people, one could achieve a lot.
Anil Sharma Palia saab, please re-read my comments where did I say that things are better? Only that there are choices in education for people who can afford. In your previous post you mentioned that once education system has choices it will sort out the problem of equal opportunity. Sadly it hasn't. There is a role for govt to ensure equal opportunity but through private enterprise, like school voucher system.

And the problem that I mention that is getting worse is that of discrimination. The point about Satyamev Jayate is what you saw there is just the tip of the iceberg of problem. The real face of Indian society is too ugly. It's not only the arm chair critics who need to have a reality check of their views about India but a lot like us too.
Vishal Kumar Singh ‎Anil Sharma Indeed one needs voucher system.
I will digress and ask few questions. I thought I will send you mail but then I thought it will make sense to ask you on this forum, as this information will help others.
As you said in your village, people are not able to afford Rs 100 for child education and they are from lower caste. When you mean lower caste, are these Dalits only or they are mix of OBC , Dalits.
The reason I ask is, as I understand OBC like Yadavs in UP are a landowning class and after Mandal they have become politically strong. Do these people also cannot afford Rs 100 after so much of empowerment.
I can understand that Dalits may not have not done well but apart from Dalits , the so called lower caste (OBC) are they really in such a bad position.
Yazdy Rusi Palia Anil Sharma, When I mentioned that if the competition is opened, I meant, let there be absolutely no controls. The controls by the government is hindering more schools coming up.
Vishal Kumar Singh ‎Yazdy Rusi Palia There was discussion on education in this group.
The fact of the matter is that education can be a costly business, if you need to attract right teachers. There is no way a school in a slum will have the kind of teachers, say in a middle class area. To set the level playing field you need to have vouchers which are priced based on the income of parents. Schools will then go in slums for wanting high priced vouchers. I think pure free markets in education will not work.
Sanjeev has written in his book BFN about negative income tax and vouchers.
Anil Sharma Vishal, first a bit on nomenclature. Dalits do not come under the caste system. The Hindu varna system excludes Dalits. They are deems so low that they are the outcasts. The lowest in varnas system are Shudras and these are the ones that make the so called lower castes. In lower castes there are just too many castes from Yadavs, Shepards, Carpenter, Kushwahas, Kurmis, Kumhars etc. and the list goes on.
Now among the Shudras or the lower castes at least in UP and Bhiar the Yadavs and Kurmis have become the dominant power. This has been more because of political patronage; a lot of Yadavs got jobs during Mulayams earlier rule especially in police force. Yadavs are not land owning class in my opinion at least not in the eastern UP.
Specifically in my village the kids who can't go to private school are mostly from Dalits and other lower castes; some are from Yadav castes as well.

14th March 2011

Injustice of the “Justice of Yesterday” and Social Justice

To rationalize his ideology of socialism, Nehru used other related arguments as well. He called for ‘not just the justice of today, but the justice of yesterday’.[i] Of course, he wasn’t the only one to make such an argument, for this argument echoes throughout the Constitution. But in claiming that accountability transmits over generations, Nehru, a barrister, made a most fundamental error of all; for people who have nothing to do with an alleged injustice are never accountable for that injustice.

The idea of ‘justice of yesterday’ can lead to extremely convoluted consequences. Just because someone couldn’t catch a guilty person and punish him or her in the past (quite possibly because the law under which that person is being deemed guilty today, did not exist then!), therefore our government must apparently punish the innocent progeny of that guilty person now. It seems that alleged criminals’ children and great-grand children who were not even born when the alleged crime was committed, must now be punished without trial by taking away their lands and property and denying them an equal status under today’s laws. The Preamble’s assurance of equal status is made completely hollow if such a logic is adopted.

According to such a theory, had Nehru investigated his family history, he might have found that, possibly 50 generations ago, one of his ancestors had treated a low caste person criminally but was not caught out and tried by the law of that time (there most likely having been no such law at that time). Applying Nehru’s own principle to himself, Nehru would have had to give himself up to the nearest police station and sought to be jailed for life on behalf of his allegedly criminal relative who died 50 generations before he was born. Even atwo-year old can tell us that such justice is absurd!

Freedom hinges on the very simple concept of individual justice – a justice that belongs to our lifetime, not a ‘justice of yesterday’ wagging its long tail for a thousand generations. Unfortunately, many people in India continue to behave as if common sense is not necessary. There is nothing to distinguish rabid socialists from rabid religious fundamentalists on this form of justice. BJP and VHP used exactly such reasoning[ii] to provoke and at least indirectly encourage their followers to tear down the Babri Masjid.[iii] Apparently, some primitive barbarian (doesn’t matter who – for that person is surely long dead!) demolished a temple that presumably existed at that site and built a Babri Masjid instead, hundreds of years ago. Hence the Masjid had to be destroyed in 1992 by barbarians who, without reference to any legal process, took the primitive concept of the ‘justice of yesterday’ into their own hands. Should this continue unchecked, we would have a situation of continuous retaliation forever; until possibly everyone is dead! ‘Justice of yesterday’ stands for revenge, a revenge to be extracted from babies not yet born. Nehru should not have aligned with such barbarism.

While it is unfortunate that a temple was destroyed a few hundred years ago by a primitive barbarian, it is criminal to break down a Masjid by force today. Law and order in a free society cannot function if the concept of ‘justice of yesterday’ is allowed even the slightest foothold. To the extent that Nehru used this argument, we must hold him responsible for promoting barbarism in India.Nehru only had to open his eyes to find that this primitive concept was no longer being applied anywhere else in the modern world. With Hitler’s death, the book of his wrongs was closed and consigned to the archives. Whatever ‘extra’ punishment Hitler subsequently received in hell, if such a place exists, was a matter between Hitler and God, not a matter for man to consider.

[This is an extract from my book, Breaking Free of Nehru]

[i] Nehru, cited in Austin, Granville, op. cit., p.654.

[ii] One of the leaders of the BJP, K R Malkani, wrote, ‘the BJP had already raised the Ayodhya issue. And it had done so early in 1989, not on the basis of any electoral calculation, but on ideological conviction. Historic wrongs had to be righted, however, symbolically’ (‘BJP HISTORY: It’s Birth and Early Growth’, at [http://www.bjp.org/history/history.html]). RSS said in the Organiser of 14 January 1990 that it ‘was not a case about the title of a place but of undoing a historical wrong and for that matter no court could decide it’.

[iii] When the demonstrators had pulled down the outer wall of the mosque around 1:30 pm, one could hear the frenzied slogans of Uma Bharati, another Hindutva leader on the stage: ‘Aur ek dhakka do. Babri Masjid thod do. Aur jor. Aur jor!’ (One more hard push. Break the Babri Masjid. Harder. Harder!) (The Week, 20 December 1992, p.42). See also Mark Tully’s account at [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2528025.stm].

18th January 2011

The nonsense of ‘social justice’

Social justice does not belong to the category of error but to that of nonsense. … [T]he prevailing belief in ‘social justice’ is at present probably the gravest threat to most … values of a free civilization.

F.A.Hayek

Given that most educated people chant the mantra of social justice, it must have taken quite a bit of courage to argue – as Hayek did, years ago – that the idea of ‘social justice’ is nonsense. The ‘derivatives’ of social justice: things like ‘justice across generations’, ‘economic justice’ (economic redistribution), even affirmative action; must equally be placed in the category of nonsense.

It is impossible for anyone to provide a coherent definition of ‘social justice’ since it is impossible to arrive at a general rule or principle that clarifies what it stands for in every possible case. It should also be obvious, upon reflection, that the concept of justice and accountability is an attribute of individual human conduct. Entire groups can never be accountable for anything. Thus children, always born innocent, can never be implicated in the misdeeds of their forefathers. We must deliver justice to individual adults, not to entire societies. Only guilty individuals must be punished, not innocent parties.

There does exist, however, a general principle to reduce relative disadvantage across society, a principle that can be applied unequivocally in every case: the principle of reasonable equality of opportunity (not perfect equality of opportunity). This is ensured by providing (not by directly managing the delivery of) school education to the children of the poor. After that is done, individual initiative and luck should determine the achieved outcomes.

– My editorial in Towards a Great India, 15 November 2009.