Quote:”as morquendi told me, if you’re born poor in india, you’re screwed. if you’re born poor in the united states of america, you’re pretty much screwed after 5th standard. if, however, you were to be born poor in sri lanka, thanks to the free education system, you have HOPE.”

Dudes little knowledge is dangerous. In India primary, secondary and college run by government is FREE, as in gratis. University is practically free, however if you are parents are poor, not only is your education free but you also get a stipend (at the university level). Furthermore, if you happen to come from the lowest of the lowest socioeconomic strata–you belong the lowest caste or harijans, or belong to a tribal group–nearly 35% of all university and college seats are reserved for you. The standards of admission are lowered so the less privileged have a chance of breaking out of the cycle of poverty M referred to somewhere.

India has private schools–primary and secondary, just as Sri lanka has. In India this is where the accumulation of cultural capital (a la Bourdieu) is the most stark—the young kids are taught English, play with computers, can learn French if they want, go to drama classes IF they go to a private school. In a government school you don’t learn how to speak English until you are in your mid-teens. You dont get to edit school magazines and write blogs. This is the BIGGEST handicap that kids from the govt schools face when they come to college and university–they arent articulate in English, they have not accumulated sufficient cultural capital to do well at the university. However, nothing can keep down the brightest of them.

In India, the ELITE universities are all govt run, private universities dont have much of a reputation. And all these ELITE universities are designed to allow poor people through. That is if they made it through primary, secondary and college in one piece. That’s what sucks about India–the primary and secondary education run by the govt is pathetic. The universities however are a different matter, some of them are world class.

In the US, the system couldn’t be more than different than what was quoted above. There are so many examples of poor kids who have risen through school to the highest ranks in the US–that examples seem pointless. Let me give two–Bill Clinton, Colin Powell. In the US, schooling is FREE–primary and secondary. Free in the sense that part of the property taxes that you pay contributes to the school (district) you go to but you don’t pay school fees. So if you live in a mansion you contribute more towards schooling than someone who lives in a trailer park. But both your kids can go to the same school. Anyone can go to the university if you have the required GPA. Education is not free but if you are admitted to an university, practically anybody can get a student loan–even if you dont have any assets. There are all kinds of grants available for poor kids. So having private universities doesnt restrict the opportunities of poor kids to get an education in the US.

I have been living in Sri lanka for not very long, and I admire that there is such a large literate base and your HDI index is really high, not only in the region but also among leading developing countries. I have spoken to a number of very knowledgeable Sri Lankans and all of them say that other than your medical faculty, rest of higher education in Sri lanka sucks! It is of mediocre quality. Sri lanka didn’t make the mistake that India did by focussing on higher education at the expense of primary and secondary education, and we (Indians) are still suffering from that lopsided policy. However, if Sri lanka wants to participate in the global knowledge-based economy,its higher education must be restructured. If like the JVP, you would like to remain an isolated, island cut off from rest of the world, that’s another matter. And we can stop this conversation. But if you want Sri Lankans in large numbers to be bio-techs, nano-techs, code-wizards, you will have to infuse more capital into the university, increase the number of seats, pay HIGHER SALARIES to teachers. Indi showed the financial challenges involved in doing all that. Does the Sri lankan government have that much deployable capital for higher education? Rata-perata policies have essentially sucked dry whatever may have available. May be it will cost GOSL less if it allows private degree granting institutions to set up shop but at the same time makes easy-soft loans available to those who cannot afford the private education but would like to go to private univ. I would call that a decent, civilized, democratic country. A country that gives its citizens true choice about where they would like to be educated.

Ok I get back to writing the dam(n) proposal. Cheers!