[Reader-list] Response to Article on Privatization

[Ravi Kumar]

There was an article titled 'A LESSON FROM THE THIRD WORLD - James Tooley on the extraordinary success of private education in Africa and India' sent by Yazad Jal. It is not at all detrimental to dispatch materials for better of dissemination of knowledge and information but on must also think of the consequences that it produces. 

The point here is not at all to dismiss the validity of private enterprise as solely profit making venture but what one needs to analyze is that what are the larger bearings of such projects and why do they emerge? Again, one option will be to rest on variety of reports, shun one's own critical faculty and then formulate an argument on that basis but then where does it lead. The other option is to critically evaluate the causes and consequences of such works and then reflect upon it. This is not happening when we just dispatch reports in favor of 'privatization' as the only option for the decadent education system.

When we talk of education we get concerned with a variety of objects - the aim of education (literacy of eudcation), information versus knowledge debate, pedagogical concerns, child -community interface etc.  This is not happening here. And I fear that it adds another piece to the current trend of mustering support for privatization and withdrawal of State (to the whims and fancies of Capital). And the paragraph quoted below from the article is a pointer towards this. 
"What is the problem in state schools? The Probe Report put it succinctly: accountability. Private schools, the report said, were successful because they were more accountable. 'The teachers are accountable to the manager (who can fire them) and, through him or her, to the parents (who can withdraw their children).' There is no such accountability in government schools, and 'this contrast is perceived with crystal clarity by the vast
majority of parents'"
Effeciency and accountability is one thing and corporatization of work place and services is another, which has much wider and immediate ramifications for the masses and we the internet using at least middle segment experience quite late and perhaps such thoughts emerge out of that background as well.

Ravi
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