Both my parents are dedicated teachers in government run schools. They teach in classrooms of over 100 students. The students are mostly from backward castes and poor families. Needless to say, their families are uneducated, have hardly enough food to eat and possess no disposable income. Several students sell their government subsidized textbooks on black market. The rate of school dropout is alarming. 10% drop out of school every passing year, during the 5 years of secondary school education. Several girls get married in their teens and my parents receive invitation cards to their weddings.

As teachers in charge, my parents get a lot of flak for the low performance of their students in public exams. The inspectors routinely compare the school’s output with that of the 100% results of private schools. Beneath this discrepency however are hidden some facts (a) their students come from rich, land owning families (b) the parents have a lot of disposable income (c) the classrooms have 20 students or even lesser.

The real reason for the discrepency in the results is easy to see. The per capita investment on each student (money+teachers+motivation) is 1000 times higher in the private schools than in the government schools.

Now, why did my highly intelligent parents opt for employment in government schools than in private schools ? Not because of any reason to serve the society but more mundane reasons of higher pay. Yes, government teachers get paid about 5 times as high as private school teachers. In private schools, the management corners all the profits and pays awfully low to the teachers. Why is this strategy succeeding ? Because of the high level of unemployment in our country, there is no real shortage of talented young men and women.

Inspite of their higher pay, the challenges faced by my parents as government teachers are far higher. (a) They have to teach 10 times as many students as the private teachers. (b) They have to deal with the bottom rung of indian society, in terms of both economic and social status. (c) They have to do a thousand other odd jobs as government employees – correcting 1000 times as many examination scripts as private teachers, officiating at elections and other state paraphernalia .. (d) They have to deal with politically-connected absentee teachers who dump their workload over other teachers.

Now, when you advocate privatizing the Indian education industry, what would happen to teachers like my parents ? They would see an immediate cut in their salaries (as high as 90% of their income). Do they deserve it ? In 20 years of their service, each of my parents can lay claims to bringing education to atleast 10,000 Indian citizens – mostly from poor and backward families. Does the nation reward them now by cutting 90% of their salaries, and putting that money into the pockets of the education-contractors ?

Would this act benifit any of the poor and backward caste children that they are teaching ? Would we see a dramatic increase in their education output ? What is the guarentee that this move would not lead to further seggregation of children – special private schools catering to poor, backward caste children & clique schools such as the Delhi public school catering only to the children of the rich and the powerful ? In the USA, the black people had to wage a bitter war to end this type of seggregation in the school. How can we ensure that this privatization would not be a retrograde step in India ?

How can we truly educate and transform the entire Indian population.. because each single child matters the most to the development of the country ?

My story is coming from the rich and fertile Godavari delta region of Andhra Pradesh. The region has a strong liberal history, and practically zero communal problems. And it still has 30% illiteracy. Amongst the so called literate, hardly 10% of the students are eligible for ready employment in either service or manufacturing sectors.

We agree that we massively screwed up in the 60 years of independence. But how can we redeem the situation ?

Other thing i dont know is whether indian industrialists openly prefer free markets? In the past, we have seen these big industrial houses not to prefer that because they are sort of big boy. Even today, i am sure indian business environment is controlled by 20-25 industrial families who can get anything from govt they want (!!) and they would want that number limited.