Yesterday, the Union Cabinet okayed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill. It will now be tabled in parliament. Read the news report here. The idea is that kids between 6 and 14 will be forcibly sent to free government schools. Private schools will have to reserve places for the poor.
Yet, as Anthony de Jasay explains in this little book, all “rights” must be based on “obligations.” Where the obligation does not exist, neither does the right. Thus, if a landlord signs a rental contract with a tenant, the latter has the “right” to occupy the property because the landlord has a corresponding obligation to hand over possession peacefully. A worker who signs a labour contract has an obligation to work on the terms specified, while the employer has the right to demand that work as per contract.
Once we understand that all legal rights are meaningful only when backed by matching obligations, we find that the innumerable “human rights” legislated by socialists are all completely meaningless for the precise reason that no one is backing them with obligations. Socialism means the multiplication of meaningless rights. These rights exist on paper only. And so it will be with this new “right to education.”
Further, the words “free” and “compulsory” jar when placed together. If education is delivered to the people free of cost by The State, then no private entity can possibly compete. Further, this free education should be such an attractive prospect that no force has to be used to get kids into schools. This bill wants to use force to provide something free as a right. Like a right to free and compulsory gulab jamuns. This sounds so confused that I wonder what sort of “knowledge” went into drafting this bill. And, it must not be missed, our education minister is a socialist lawyer.
In my book, knowledge is capable of being bought and sold in markets, like any other good or service. There are people with knowledge and people without, just as there are people with potatoes and people without. So just as the people who want potatoes buy them from people with potatoes, so must people who want knowledge buy it from those who have it. My question: What knowledge does out The State possess that it is so desirous of becoming a Universal Teacher?
Think over this question. Think deep.
And know that the country is a mess because of The State.
Why, even the new bridge in Bombay has been cited as an example of “incompetence.”
How can we allow such an ignorant entity to teach?
Recommended reading: My recent article, "De-Mystifying Knowledge," available here.
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