The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into how the World's Poorest People are Educating Themselves

Are Affordable Private schools really affordable? Hail Adam Smith!! Market economy is moving from cosmetics and cars to primary education and health. To tap the huge potential in the primary education market in India, many private investors are flocking in India with their so called "generous" money and pumping it into very safe and sound middle income and low-middle income class private schools in India. To glorify their investment they are using the term "Affordable private schools (APS)" OR "Low fee private schools" for these target schools. In a country, where 80% of the population lives below $2/day poverty line, they are making an open mockery by calling schools charging Rs. 400 to Rs 800 per month as "Affordable Schools"? Affordable for whom? But if investors are happy in investing their money and recipients are making money from this available credit, why I am so sour ? What's bothering me is the race to embrace the "social investor" OR "social entrepreneur" tag by the investors and private school owners, which is artificially escalating the APS sector and further marginalizing the access to "Quality Education" to the poor in India and taking India further away from the common schooling system. Abysmally poor quality English medium private schools are mushrooming and the thuging the poor illiterate parents by school ties and the facade of the badly pronounced English rhymes. Learning levels of the children in such schools are totally questionable. As the children of all the parents, who understand the significance of education are trapped by the school ties and English greetings of unregulated, poorly managed and understaffed private schools, the government schools are left with the children, whose parents take education and government schools, nothing more than a day care center, while both the parents are out to earn their daily wages... On top of all this Mr. James Tooley is selling the APS concept to patriotic Indians in the name of Mahatama Gandhi. They say that even 'your' Gandhiji vouched for Indian village school system, where students used to pay fees to the teachers. I just want to refresh his memory that in the absence of a robust tax collection system, that was the alternative then. But currently poor parents are doubly paying; the tax and the fees to private schools. Even today 90% + children in India study in govt. primary schools. Recently during a meeting called to discuss Right to Education (RTE) among the officials of education department in a district, when there was a hand count of the officials whose children study in the government schools, the count was ZERO. When no one including the government officials have ZERO focus on the government schools, when there is NO one to awake the sleeping teachers in the govt. schools, when we are SO shy to work with the govt, to channelize the tax payers money for the right use, when we are calling schools charging Rs 400 to 800 as affordable schools, are we really serious about lifting the level of education in India ?