Flesh on Statistic

Its such a common feeling we all know and yet we are always surprised when we come face to face with it…I am talking about the feeling that we get when we face a fact that we know about in theory, a fact that has been so taken for granted that though it troubles our logical brain, we seldom realize its significance until when its bang under our noses.

The boy of our maid, failed in his 6^th std exam today. Also, I was told that out of his class of 60 students, only 9 had passed. The marks he got were pretty appalling by any standards – 4 out of 100 in math, for example. Incidentally, he also has an entrance exam to another school tomorrow, a better school (all in a relative sense of course). Since I am free for the most part these days due to a transition phase in my career, I said, what the heck; let me have a little mathematical tête-à-tête with him – I mean how hard can it be to teach a VI standard child maths?

Ah vanity, for I had not reckoned with the quality of education imparted to our masses – and if I am sounding elitist, that’s because I just realized how much of a privileged education I’ve had and believe me, its not a nice way to find out.

Sample this first question he asked me.

If 3x=9, what is the value of x? The question had him stumped. For him, the concept of x as a variable was an alien concept. The fact that 3x means 3 multiplied by x was also a revelation. It took me about 15 minutes to give him the Aha effect. After which, he became quite adept at solving such questions, though a bit of rearranging had him thinking for a while before he got his brain to work out the logic. Ditto for a question which asked what the value in fraction for 25% was. Again, I observed that once he was explained clearly what % stood for, he worked out the logic on his own quickly enough. And so it went.

Now since these are concepts that we were taught since class II, if not before, this leaves me with a couple of suppositions.

Firstly, since the boy had a more or less normal learning curve and could spot logic, he was not dyslexic or an idiot, which further means that either he was never given a proper explanation of the logic involved or he understood wrongly and was never corrected.

Now, both of these don’t speak very highly of our government aided schools, the schools which teach the maximum number of students in this country, do they? Of course, that, in no way implies that education in the private schools (the so called english medium ‘public’ schools) is much better. But the main difference lies in the fact that in the latter case, the teachers are held accountable to an extent due to the reason of brand value (after all, these schools need to make profit), the better pay attracts better talent (hence even if marginal in most cases, better teachers) and students are able to access better tutors due the same reasons that they are able to access private schools.

So the deprivation becomes in many ways a vicious circle. And its fantastically disquieting to see people being deprived of things we have taken to be a right, an afterthought. The right to an enabling education that would equip us to fight our way in the world for better standards of living (better standard of living doesn’t mean better cell phones, but better opportunities and mitigation of risks).

What I was seeing in front of me was a boy who would become a part of the statistic which states that 70% of students who start school drop out before 10^th standard. And the sudden leap from cold statistic to flesh and blood can be, as I said, quite disquieting.

And then my thoughts inevitably turned to the raging reservation issue.

I don’t know whether the boy was from the so called “backward classes”, nor did I ask it. But it becomes quite clear that it is in these people’s name that the reservation issue has been raised. And just quite how hollow the arguments of the pro-reservationists is can be gauged from the fact that this person couldn’t hope to clear a higher education exam (leave alone a medical or a management education), barring a divine intervention (asking quite a bit from the overworked God isn’t it?) because the foundation on which his education is based has been termite bitten.

And yet, it is exactly by evoking caste based emotions in people like these that the political parties hope to garner a lifetime of vote. Illusions are usually beautiful and the illusion of equality is perhaps the most beautiful of all. And illusions are usually traps and this reservation-for-equality is perhaps the most pernicious of our times which has been sold to and lapped up by many people who don’t have a chance of ever making proper use of it.

And when I rack my brains for a way out, the clichéd (perhaps a thing becomes clichéd when its always true) solution seems the best way out. Make all teachers accountable, make their pay performance based, make their pay market linked and overhaul techniques of education and exams.

But like as constructive things go, it’s a long haul and has a long gestation period. So its pretty much an impossible thing to happen. And all that I have written is pretty much well known, but as I said, the actual contact with reality brushes the cobweb of cold facts and stats and awakens us to the human reality.

This was my brush of seeing beyond the iron curtain.