a two year old article in the indian express:
Poverty alleviation is but a small aspect of social justice. A just society provides equal opportunity to all members of society—all religions, all castes, and both sexes. India’s record of ill-treatment starts before birth—we kill the girl child before she is born. After birth, there is at best benign neglect and later on, especially among poor families, the girl child is needed to work at home. As she grows up, she becomes an increas-ing burden, and parents worry about raising a dowry for her marriage. And the cycle continues.
There’s a need for accountability in our poverty schemes; the government is not being held responsi-ble for its failures. Can this centuries old discrimination practice be broken? Yes. Here is how. There are approximately 120 million girl children in the school-going age of five to 14. About 80 million live in rural areas. Each girl child in the rural areas is entitled to Rs 300 a month if she attends school. Total expen-diture? Less than Rs 30,000 crore, and less than the just introduced employ-ment guarantee programme.
What kind of ‘leakages’ can occur here? There will be a market for fake education certificates. True, but we also observe that the poor are spending a fair amount of their hard-earned money to send their kids, even girls, to school. For just Rs 300 a month, they are not going to jeopardise the future of their children. But let us assume they do; so let us modify the scheme thus: every girl child in the age group five to 14 receives Rs 3,600 a year. Period. No ifs, ands and buts. Now where is the leakage? Other than an increase in sex-change operations, I cannot foresee any. This plan might encourage movement from urban to rural areas. Good. The parents will find that the girl child is ‘profitable’, so more girl children will be born. Good. More girls will be educated, more girls will become pro-ductive, and the dowry system will begin a slow death. Good. So why has such a plan not been thought of, let alone implemented? Because it is more profitable for the government to spend about 10 times the money, Rs 200,000 crore annually, on various ‘in the name of the poor’ schemes than to imple-ment policies that will actually help the rural poor. (italics mine).
i do not agree with surjit bhalla most times but this is an exception. isn't he talking about a variant of the dole?
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When it involves few hundred rupees and the shabbily dressed, we are quick to smell a scam. When it is suits and billions, the stench hits us only after we have been scammed over. Life!
Anyway, the girl-child trajectory of ‘good’ that you illustrate almost came true, but just. In Maharashtra, which has several successful schemes for girl-child education, one involves free milk and rice. In a nearby school with this scheme, I saw how the school, teachers, parents and students dealt with it. The teachers first reported that girls were turning up only on the days when rice was being distributed.
A fixed number of days attended to benefit from the scheme, took care of that. Next, there were grumblings that families with more girls were getting more rice…. not easy to address. Families with just boys did start to feel neglected. All the same the drop-out rate reduced, but still remained higher as the girls went on to higher classes. The problem, as the girls themselves pointed out -lessons were getting tougher, there was no help at home, and the rest of the students attended private tuitions. The teachers were already overworked and underpaid, there was no way to fill this requirement of extra help with the curriculum for the girls.
Dole schemes helped in keeping the children in school upto a certain point, but a time came, when other kinds of dole had to be supplemented –the knowledge sharing kind. Since volunteerism is not in our mindset, how do we find ways of bringing down the dismal teacher-student ratio? How do we cultivate community participation to mentor students and be teacher aids in classrooms? If this has been on your mind or you have written about it, I would like to read them.
anu,
you touch upon the heart of the issue- the state might reach out to help, but how do we ensure that society at large- parents, teachers, institutions- also help the girl child,in this case, in utilizing the aid extended?
as you can see, there are two problems here. one, implementation and two, societal response. i'd written a long response, but i didn't find it satisfactory. here's my take- the dole is a solution that would solve most implementation issues connected with welfare 'schemes'. schemes like the pds, nregs and a thousand others. while the schemes can deliver up to only 10-15% of intended beneficiaries, the dole can take it upto 70-90% and more, in my view. ('dole' is usually used to refer to direct tansfer of money, so the milk/rice scheme is not a dole).
the second part- societal response. these are battles mostly fought by the civil society. by members of the public- the state is trying to facilitate/enable this. as i said, and someone very wise had pointed out much earlier- political rights and protections don't mean much without social rights and the battles that need to be fought to achieve them.
the dole would help reasonable people, liberals and others, to focus their efforts more on helping society respond more positively. while with other schemes, their energies are mostly dissipated in fighting leakages and bad implementation.
Thanks for the reply Kuffir,
The state distrust’s about the poor’s ability to utilize dole (cash) for the purpose it was meant stems from all the reasons your other posts elucidate, including the inbuilt bias while evaluating and giving feedback about the success of a scheme. When it appears to have failed in one state, we need to focus on places where it has delivered, before we rubbish it. Compare Maharashtra and MP with the rice scheme; in MP only a small percentage of parents were even aware of the free rice for girls.
In Maharashtra one can see the evolution of constructive ideas/solutions for problems –free education for girls did not magically change the scene, then free texts books and uniforms were introduced, still schools could not retain all the girls. Rice as an incentive improved the situation, as now not only were the girls gaining something for themselves they were also bringing back something for the family. And since this was assured, parents could forgo involving her in wage earning during difficult or opportune times (harvest). But then came the issue of learning difficulties at higher standards. Whatever solutions we come up for this will give us a model for other states, whenever they reach this stage in implementation.
Schools are a continuous expense for parents, a lot of hidden costs like footwear, transport and accessories may not be budgeted into the dole. The strain of these too can reduce the motivation to keep children in schools and lead to failure of dole and associated schemes.
About societal response, I really don’t see why this is so interlinked with implementation, meaning should all of civil society be involved in bemoaning this, or should small groups monitor them? The rest can be involved in ensuring the forward momentum of such schemes.
For example in the case of students requiring help with their studies, it is knowledge sharing. Can we not think about including mentoring as a part of education? Where students of higher classes step in and help the students of lower classes. Parents can be encouraged to help out in classes. Develop a criss-cross of different schools into the mentoring programs, maybe. I know these ideas have been around and parents of children whose future have a predictable route have vetoed this whenever this comes up. Really this is very sad, in today’s world it is skills such as these that will give their children that extra edge to be successful and empathetic people.
We also need to think of novel ways of involving people with specialized skills to spend part of their time teaching/sharing in schools, I mean everybody; the police, the postal folks, the engineers, scientists etc. If volunteerism is not spontaneous then maybe we have to engage in reward systems for kids and grownups :)
'About societal response, I really don’t see why this is so interlinked with implementation, meaning should all of civil society be involved in bemoaning this, or should small groups monitor them? The rest can be involved in ensuring the forward momentum of such schemes.'
anu,
i thought you'd understand that when i said 'civil' society i meant broadly those who are actively engaged in monitoring policy- like social reasearchers, activists, political activists, politicians, the media etc., i'll quote the last para again:
'the dole would help reasonable people, liberals and others, to focus their efforts more on helping society respond more positively. while with other schemes, their energies are mostly dissipated in fighting leakages and bad implementation. '
by societal response- i meant the empowered classes i cited above and at a micro level, the community and the family.
right now, most of the attention of the first class of people is more engaged in monitoring policy implementation than in catalysing change at community/family level and communicating needs at community/family level to the government.
i hope i've made my pov a little more clear.
i agree with all the positive changes you suggested in your thoughtful comment- the point of the dole is to make possible more debate on those issues rather than on whether this scheme or that works better. to sort of clear the air of all noise.
>>by societal response- i meant the empowered classes i cited above and at a micro level, the community and the family.
>>right now, most of the attention of the first class of people is more engaged in monitoring policy implementation than in catalysing change at community/family level and communicating needs at community/family level to the government.
But,why?
A smaller group within the empowered class can be watchdogs while the rest can be catalyzing change.
I guess I am wondering, why can’t the two be parallel processes in time? Why must they be staggered?
anu,
soory about the late response
'I guess I am wondering, why can’t the two be parallel processes in time?'
do you see the two processes happening parallel-y, at an equal pace? activism has secured the nregs, the pds, the midday meal scheme- but why aren't all the poor benefitting from those schemes and why aren't all the children in school?
>>do you see the two processes happening parallel-y, at an equal pace?
If I want to comment on the state of education and schemes – No!
If I want to see possibilities for reform –Yes!
Implementation, monitoring and problem solving has to be or rather are parallel processes. It has been in some cases and I would like to put my hopes there and learn from that.
At an individual level we do this, rarely do we concentrate all our efforts on one aspect of management. We don’t do that very well at other levels. The question would be, do we get our act together or do we wait for the next generation of Indians to follow through with the next aspect regarding education?
Hoping to read your take on poor countries in Latin America making progress in reducing illiteracy. Please! :)
anu,
the question was- do you see the two processes happening parallel-y, at an equal pace?
you admit they aren't. why aren't they happening parallel-y, at an equal pace? because one of the processes engages more time and attention now. why does that happen?
'Implementation, monitoring and problem solving has to be or rather are parallel processes.'
the reason why it happens parallel-y, at an equal pace, in some instances and not in others is because in some instances, delivery mechanisms, are better designed than others.
i'd like to quote from some of your own writing to illustrate what i am trying to say:
'I then started to work on what I convinced myself were more elegant experiments, ones that could be left behind at the end of the day. But at heart I knew, and missed the hands-on, getting fingers dirty, elbows scratched kind of work that really allowed the ‘finding a way’ rather than following a way. The natural intensity and passion towards work was being replaced with cool efficiency. The spontaneity was leaving the mothers. And the race was happening without me.
As working women in Science, we were aware of the challenges that such careers presented and regularly discussed their impact, but ‘space’ as a significant factor was never articulated and hence left me quite unprepared to deal with it. The stony refusal of the buildings to accommodate the changing needs of some of its workforce, added to all other known factors, in a hidden manner. The rigidity of the physical space could not be blamed on anybody or anything we just learn to live with it. Because, it was we who had changed, I thought.'
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