Connection Failure

The comparision here is not 1 to 1. The same money that would provide higher education would provide primary education to 30 children.

The one person benefitting from higher education, let's say decides to stay in nepal and starts a business to benefit himself and in the process provides job to few other people, so that does help out the society.

But in the long run, if we are to work on making education more accessible, then we need to think of those 30 kids who will be educated.

I think Education is the most important thing for a country like Nepal. The one person benefitting from higher education might create some jobs or help out some people, but we're going to less kids who are educated. In the long run it will be more beneficial to have children who are educated to make better decisions for the country.

All else being equal, Saroj, when a prefessional college graduate say, starts a business, he not only provides jobs to a few, but provides each of those employee's family a better opportunity. someone with a job obviously has a better capability to send his/her children to school, for example.

The same business would also provide some revenues to the government, which can be used by the latter to improve the education system in the country.

I am still not convinced which is the best appraoch. The ideal, of course, would be the "multi-pronged" appraoch, but who has the resources to do that? :s

Poonte, yes the college graduate lets say would start a business provides jobs and their families benefit and send their children to school.

But most likely this business is going to be in the city where children already have access to education. We should focus on getting education to children who are not living in the cities.

Poonte wrote:

"I am still not convinced which is the best appraoch. The ideal, of course, would be the "multi-pronged" appraoch, but who has the resources to do that?"


The way I have thought about this issue for the purpose of making decisions is this:

1. If you want to do help in a way that makes you feel good but you don't really
care much about getting a bigger bang for your bucks, then, pay for some child's
education from Class 1 to Class 10.

The time it takes to so that is: 10 years, a long time indeed to do follow-ups.

Out of 100 children you or your group help that way, my sense is that maybe 5 to 10
of them will go on to complete SLC.

The rest drop out for a variety of reasons in Nepal, (for which the government should be hammered for not doing its job of keeping kids in school . . . but the government never gets hammered for this glaring oversight.)

BUT

2. If you want to help and deeply care about getting a bigger bang for your bucks, then, TRY putting your scarce resources on paying for professional-degree or short-term vocational education of smart but economically disadvantaged students of
various traditionally underrepresented ethnic communities.

True, finding such students takes time and effort.
That's the downside.
But such students do exist.

And once you find them, then work out an arrangement to pay for their education or training, and you continue to provide job-related advice, mentoring. . . you open
up networks and information channels to them . . . then you can just enjoy seeing their taking positive advantage of all those opportunities to better themselves to get jobs in the market . . . help their families, and eventually their communities and villages by pulling their siblings and cousins into the wider job market.

This takes: Maybe two to three years, max. And maybe two-weeks to six-weeks, if you wish to subsidize trainings related to cooking, hair-dressing and so on for people to start their own businesses.

Education for education's sake is USELESS in Nepal.
Only a tiny elite can afford that -- and that's fine.

BUT
Education for jobs is what we need all across Nepal so that our most valuable resource -- that is, the people of Nepal -- can be productive to earn their own dal-bhat.

After all, just being literate and educated never gave anyone any job anywhere!

oohi
ashu

But wouldn't the increase in living standards in the cities inevitably have spill-over effects in the villages too? Just like workers in foreign countries sending remittances back home, don't the workers in the cities do the same and send money back to their families in the villages?

Also, the government can use the revenues created by the businesses in the cities to upgrade the living standards in the villages, haina?

Thanks for the wonderful discussions, everyone! My personal conclusion out of all this:

A desperate country like Nepal needs help on every level. Like I already said somewhere above, primary education is just as important as higher education and, in turn, that is just as critical as providing better opportunities for the college graduates. To expect one organization, or one individual for that matter, to provide assistance on all levels is not feasible. Everyone must do whatever they can, whereever they can, and hope that someone else would pick up the tabs elsewhere.

Organizations like HeNN is doing a remarkable work for the underprivileged children on it's part, taking into consideration they have great limitations. And I wish others stepped up to the plate and tried to do more elsewhere.

The primary responsibility of providing for the citizens of Nepal lies with the government of Nepal, of course. Therefore, while trying to help the needy in whatever way we can, as citizens, we must also put constant pressure on the government to do the right thing. This is just as important as donating a few dollars to charitable organizations. One cannot do this alone either. Where one can begin is that if you know, let others know -- spread awareness. Everyone fulfilling their respective parts will, in the long run, result in increased prosperity for all.

In the meantime, Shirish, as Ashu pointed out, it might also be a good idea to allocate some of HeNN's funds for self evaluation too, if it hasn't been done yet. Also, I am sure the good fellows at HeNN has thought about sustainability of their projects so that the infrastructures that they've helped to put in place will remain sustainable in terms of it being of good use into many, many years to come.

To everyone else, one small thing you can do for your country right is to donate a few bucks! HeNN is here. Some others might need it in the future. आ‍-आफ्नो गछ्यले भ्याये सम्म आज दिम्, भोलि पनि दिम्, अनि आउँदा बर्षहरुमा पनि दिई राखम्। This not to say we must support every organization that claims to do social work in Nepal, but we must use our best judgements. So far, to the best of my judgement, HeNN has proven to be one of the better ones.

My apologies. My post was addressed to Saroj, and Ashu's post popped up in between.

You do have very valid argument there, Ashu. But we do need children to get to where you want to start from too, haina? In order to find college-level smart students to provide help for, they too have to have come from having received primary, secondary, and high-school education, haina ta?

i have a question!! :D :D
why isn't the SLC removed?? i mean doesn't everyone pretty much agree that it's stupid??
seriously, just cause someone doesn't do as well on the SLC, their life goes down the hill really fast!!
I think it should be removed and maybe get like a different way of of testing or some different method!!
Just cause someone does bad on one test doesn't mean that they won't be able to sucess in their field down the road!! :S :S geez! :@ :@

Poonte wrote:

"But we do need children to get to where you want to start from too, haina? In order to find college-level smart students to provide help for, they too have to have come from having received primary, secondary, and high-school education, haina ta?"


Primary and secondary schools in Nepal are all about passing exams.
These schools reward you for your test-taking ability.

By paying for a child's education from Class 1 to Class 10, all you are doing is
making sure that the child is passing exams. That's all.

If the child passes exams, you smile.
If she doesn't, well, you shrug off and move on.

SLC, for instance, is all based around your ability to pass
exams.

BUT:

Professional schools (those teaching nursing, medical, dental, law, accounting or whatever else) are a little more likely to reward you for your natural talents or for
your skill-gathering skill than for your exam-taking abilities.

I mean, why would you go to a medical school in Nepal, if you have no talent for,
say, studying physiology?

And natural talents/interests become more apparent once people get older. And those who pursue their natural talents/interests are likely to be more economically productive.

So, it's fair to assume that -- when you catch students in their 20s -- there's a lot of
self-selection that's already there. Talented students who have done well in past
exams tend to gravitate to pre-professional areas of their interest.

In Nepal, when talents match interests, often the only hurdle is that of money -- and this is where strategic private money can help a lot.

As such, when helping such students, you can start off assuming that the admitted students are ALREADY good test-takers . . . else they wouldn't have made it that
far.

That insight then allows to help you focus on helping your students make the best use of their talents for their chosen field of study by establishing networks, providing access to information and so on and on.

Hence, support talented AND economically deserving and ethnically under-represented
Nepali students.

Since -- on another note -- tomorrow's ruling class in Nepal will come from the cohorts of present-day professional school students, it helps to make sure that gates to elitism (and I mean that in a positive way) remain WIDE open to ALL talented young Nepalis regardless of their jaat and religion and background.

oohi
ashu

But the reality in Nepal is that -- whether we like SLC, or education below it, or not -- prospective professionals would have to have come through that system, wouldn't they?

yeah, they would! so for a start we need to discard the SLC!! :D

Why only SLC, nails? I am ALL for totally revamping the ENTIRE education system in Nepal. But that's a long way to go, and people need help now.

"But the reality in Nepal is that -- whether we like SLC, or education below it, or not -- prospective professionals would have to have come through that system, wouldn't they?"


Yes.

That is why, it's worth arguing that our time and efforts and resources there
are BETTER spent on pushing and monitoring the government's work on
universalizing primary education.

I mean, look, it's a shocking scandal that so many Nepalis cannot read and write,
and that the government appears happy to let donors and private funders
come in and do what should have been its primary work.

Still, the the solution is not to rush in with our own variously conceived help-one-kid-at-a-time formula in a do-good manner, but to really push the government to do its work WHILE spending our resources helping those who will provide a greater return on our meager investment. Obviously, not everyone will agree with this idea, and that's fine.

That said, my sense is that a fairly sizeable cohort is already there -- waiting for help.

oohi
ashu

"Out of 100 children you or your group help that way, my sense is that maybe 5 to 10
of them will go on to complete SLC."

WOW, Where did you get that figure from?
The students of Budhanilkantha school who come from all the districts in Nepal and who are also ethnically and economically deserving do well in their professional field.
Isn't that so?Enlighten me.
Also ,do you think a student going for 1-10 years in a school is disadvantaged than a kid who goes to apprentice in a profession like carpentary,electrician,restaurant?
Provoking some more thoughts.

Poonte - I think that's a start! And the reason i said only the SLC is from what i have heard a lot of students do make it up to that level and they've made it that far and just cause they bomb one exam all those years goes down the drain!!

Tisa - yeah but you can't really put every student in a school like Budhanilkantha school!! that just wouldn't be possible! and what about the rest of the childern you help? what do you do with them? Tisa are you trying to say that those students are worthless? see so it does make sense to say that - Out of 100 children you or your group help that way, my sense is that maybe 5 to 10 of them will go on to complete SLC.


and here:
do you think a student going for 1-10 years in a school is disadvantaged than a kid who goes to apprentice in a profession like carpentary,electrician,restaurant?
Provoking some more thoughts.

see i think that here, it depends on individual cases because we are all born with different genes and how we're brought up does play in role to how sucessful each student that does go to 1-10 years in school becomes, whereas some might just be better off in different professions!! It's not that it's bad but it just how it is kind of i guess! :S

i thought primary education until class 5 was free in government schools. And otherwise too, government schools are really cheap. It might not provide the 'english' education, but i think in terms of quality, some of the best educated people in our countries have studies in rural government school so there is no barometer to measure that.

In my opinion, today we all want to do something on our own and be recognized as a great 'hero' and are refusing to partner with others. Even regarding health posts, i think there are one in every VDC or something like that (i am not sure though) but the thing we lack is the health workers and the doctors to work in those health posts. So why not parter with the government or the local health post and help the workers instead like compensating for their salary, providing medicine, etc.

good luck to the women! way to go! a nice gesture indeed and good to see some familar names.

i think one should not really pit primary education against higher. it's like comparing basic needs with luxury. i think every state is responsible to cater the basic needs of its citizens --primary education being one of them. there should not be any undue incentive behind that. secondly, having more literate citizens although don't sound much fascinating in the beginning than having few cream professionals, the former always have a long term postive impact as it creates oppportunities for poor to stand on their own, albeit by their own standard, and creates opportunities in the grass root level (villages) of our society.

IMHO, a seamlessly literate society is better off.
it does not make sense to paint a house, if its bricks are not strong enough to hold the building together.

profit-oriented private organizations/institutions can/may think of helping bright students and fund their higher education. a state does not hold the liability for that. however, if it can, that would be great.
LooTe

By the same token, let's start looking for ways in Nepal to:

- provide fellowships/stipends in a time-bound fashion (i.e. for a certain period of
time) to writers, artists, musicians, comedians, scientists, sports people and so
on who, having shown promise and potential, are about to START their career.

My sense is that while a few about-to-die "baristha" writers, artists, musicians, comedians, scientists, etc are awarded "dosalla after dosalla after dosalla", there
are very few avenues of help that we as a society provide to BEGINNING writers,
artists, musicians, comedians, scientists, sports people etc . . . folks who need
the help and the guidance the most to go on to be successful in their chosen fields.

If we as a society do NOT support our talents at the BEGINNING of their career,
how are we going to ensure that we will continue to have a supply of great writers,
artists, musicians, comedians, scientists, etc down the road?

No wonder then that many of our most talented citizens "drop out" of their career path due to a lack of support. True, a few persist and go on to be a success . . . but those
are only that: too few in numbers.

I am all for primary education and all that.

But lately I have been thinking: Is there a way to run goal-oriented advocacy campaigns to make primary education a PRIMARY agenda on the government's To Do list, while finding ways to nurture talents in Nepal through private money?

I don't have the answers, just thinking.

oohi
ashu

Thanks again, everyone for a wonderful discussion. It had been a while since we saw a truly positive and thought-provoking discussion like this in Kurakani. Anyway, this has really made me think, and among a stream of thoughts generated in me by this discussion, I came across another idea:

How about providing younger students (perhaps until high school) with GRANTS, while making low or no interest loans to college students? Even if those college graduates may not end up staying back in Nepal, they can still be made to pay back their loans from what they earn as diapora.

This can be made sustainable by the earning from fees and/or interests, or, perhaps even from donations from previous recipients of the loans who may have done well as professionals.

If this idea reflects naivety on my part, which it very well might, some insights would be appreciated.

Also, Ashu, what is the problem with those promising, smart college-level students going to government colleges? Fees at TU campuses are affordable, I believe.

I am sure there are lots of people who would want to help, but then what would be the first steps we or they can take? I mean those people who just live a normal life? A good discussion isn't really going to do anything to those we are talking about!
It seems like most people do wanna help but then we don't really know what we have to do or just give up in the long process. It really isn't easy to make a difference.

Poonte wrote:

"Also, Ashu, what is the problem with those promising, smart college-level students going to government colleges? Fees at TU campuses are affordable, I believe."


Sure, there are plenty of, say, Shanker Dev Campus graduates who are now
captains of Nepal's industries.

But these guys finished their education in the '70s and the '80s.

In recent years, it's got to a point where getting a decent, upwardly-mobile job-oriented education at state-run colleges has been very difficult to achieve for
MOST students because of two challenges.

First, the environment within such college-campuses operate has gotten worse from bad. It's impossible to just study -- and do well.

Second, the competition posed to those students at state-run colleges by others
who have studied in privately-run colleges (in Nepal and India) is getting bigger
and bigger.

All things being equal, these days, a bank in Kathmandu, for instance, is more likely to hire a KU MBA than a People's Campus MBS graduate.

That means, say, a Tharu young woman with an MBA from KU has a higher chance of landing a better job at a top-tier Kathmandu bank than a similar Tharu young woman with an MBS (with identical/higher . . . S = studies) grades from People's Campus.

[That most smart and capable young Tharu women do NOT pursue higher education, even after being rare enough to have been educated up to SLC level is a separate conversation for some other time.]

My idea: Find ways to make it easier to put historically underrepresnted ethnic minorities to attain job-oriented education (either in the form degrees such as MBA, accounting certifications, etc or short-term courses such as hair-dressing, cooking, computer programming, etc that enhances their attractiveness to the job market).

Once these people have paying jobs -- either jobs that they start for themselves or jobs they have by working for others -- they are more likely to be in a position to do more for their immediate families, communities and villages.

On a personal note, putting my own idea to practice, for the past two years, I
have been -- on a small scale (remember, I am not a millionaire . . . well, not yet
anyway!) -- sponsoring to put a young woman through a private law school in Nepal.

She's feisty, argumentative, has a mind of her own and very, very bright: just
the sort of lawyer I believe Nepal or the world needs in future. Let's see how this
assistance goes: so far, she is doing very well, and my additional assistance work consists of helping her find internships, make career-related networks and so forth.
Still, this remains a micro-scale personal work on the side.

Perhaps in future, well-organized charity institutions can find ways to INSTITUTIONALLY help smart and capable Nepalis in their 20s to start their own businesses and jobs . . . in an effort to help more Nepalis down the
line.

Just a thought.

oohi
ashu