Leave It To Edupreneurs

Gurcharan Das’ column in the Sunday ToI makes for good reading. He raises a toast to Mayawati for the fact that 8,600,000 children in class I have just begun to learn English in the government schools of Uttar Pradesh.

He adds that this has “fulfilled a longstanding demand of parents who believe that they have lost two generations to Hindi chauvinists. They know that a child who learns English by age 10 has a natural advantage for the rest of its life.”

Yet, as Das notes and as we all know, government schools are not the answer. There will never be enough good teachers of English for all government schools.

Das proposes vouchers – but here too, the question of cost-efficiency comes in. If we are to collectively fund schooling for all poor children, the costs of even private sector delivery will be astronomical – and inefficient, in terms of both money as well as time.

The only efficient way, then, is to allow competing for-profit firms to develop packages that teach children English using television or Internet for a fee.

I recently saw an ad on a Delhi street: “Learn English in 6 months”. Formal schooling cannot do this job so fast.

Efficiency also refers to Time. Poor children cannot afford to spend years and years in school. They must be out in the market fast. Competing for-profit private edupreneurs can easily teach poor children some basic things like English and how to operate a calculator – essential life skills – real fast. That is the only practicable way forward.

As an aside, this Dalit preference for English also indicates that Dalits are pro-globalization and pro-liberalization.

Poor people are not stupid.

They are hugely aware that their economic and social betterment lies in markets, cities and a world language.

They are a good constituency for Libertarianism.