It seems education's attraction is different from different people - it is rooted in the ideology's of the people in whose circle the individual interacts and lives. I was struck this week by two events.
Peer Pressure/Envy:
First,once I started tutoring for GRE (last evening was my first class) my room-mate starting taking interest in completing college .
Now a 24 year's old - he had wasted his 4 years by not even completing US community college - after graduating from high school - though was working part time at various fast-food joints, departmental stores and airline sales offices-and now for a bank as a teller.
His motivation seemed to stem that I was getting $17 per hour (for only 4 hours a week) - and he never got more than $13. And I was "just like him" --only that I had scored good marks in GRE and could potentially get up to $30 per hour for GRE/SAT tutoring. Higher Education seemed to have helped me get a much higher pay than him - though I was new to the country and and no work experience in US -unlike him.
All my lectures to him earlier seemed to have not quite the same effect as this fact. He has started competing with me.
Competition & Education:
I like this competition. i believe that only when someone starts competing with someone else --one learns.
The trick for educating people - is to get them to compete with those who are educated. Some -ofcourse do want to learn at school - out of curiosity. Most come to school and remain there - becos of pressures from friends and family -atleast in the earliest grades -up to middle school level.
Drop outs from competition/school:
Students join school becos of family pressures and drop out when their family feels that they cannot compete with the rest in making proper use of the time. Their parents feel that the advantages of going to school are not that great.
For instance, in my home state Rajasthan (with 20% female literacy among 50 million residents of the state) the nomads /landless farmers do not educate their children possibly becos they realize that govt jobs require bribes which they cannot afford even if their kids could get free K-12 school education. Alternately, if the kid joins a trade - such as auto-mechanic or masonry or farming he can start earning by the time he is 16 - and married. Child marriage is common in rural Rajasthan.
Given my personal example I came to US to study long after most of my friends had given up studies and settled down. They had given up competing for greater academic knowledge (except a rare few).
Afghanistan is like my home I learn that Afghanistan has only 20% female literacy rate which is bad but still they have some excuse that Taliban banned female education for long and for past 30 years war has been going on their. But, my home state Rajasthan also had 20% female literacy till 1990!! Why?? Rajasthan is among the most peaceful and tourist attracting state in
Population of
Despite being peaceful throughout unlike
For this I can relate one case -- of a large group of landless farmers for a few years who had left their village due to a 5 year drought in our desert land to seek water and jobs in the city of
I wondered why they do not send their kids to school. I think it was not in their habit to send kids to school just like it is not in my room mates habit to get up in the morning by himself. He puts about 5 alarms which ring loudly 6:30am onwards I get up in the next room and - at 7:15 I pour water on him as per his request. Still he has managed to get a written warning not to be late to work after repeated such occasions.
Going back to the illiterate laborers case. I think they follow a routine of going about their daily life somehow taking kids to school even till elementary level hasnt entered their radar screen. Ofcourse they see lots of kids dressed neatly in school uniforms coming and going to
Im sure if govt school teachers were to start a campaign to surprise these poor people that education is free and create a supportive environment kids would come to school. But they would remain in school if they were treated properly. If their teachers have themselves been recruited through merit they would care for merit in the students. If they joined after paying bribes and through connections they would be biased towards the rich and well-connected students. Corruption in teacher recruitment (as in any other govt work in
Any comments?
Umesh
Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail
_______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
