Education

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ppl strongly encourage to watch movie “Accepted”…its kool :smiley: (u may watch other movies too there…but dont spread the word)

u will see how one person got rejected from several skoolz so he decided to make his own college. :smiley:

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interesting topic sis.

well, take a look at this article. highlights what education is good for.

The Marginal Utility of Education
Economists define “marginal utility” as the usefulness that is gained from an additional amount of some good. E.g., if you already have a washer and a dryer in your house, what is the marginal utility of having a second washer and dryer? Of another bottle opener when you already own three of them? Not much, for most people.

Charles Karelis makes an interesting argument using the idea of marginal utility to explain why poor people remain poor. Like all arguments at this level of abstraction, it illuminates at the same time as it is much too simple to carry the weight he wants it to.

It might seem like “the poorest people should get the most from a dollar of earnings” and that because they have so few of them, they should get more “satisfaction” from an additional dollar. But Karelis cites a range of research that indicates that it’s actually usually true that “the least useful bit of good is the first, and the first useful bit is the last.’ And the key reason is “because poor people, by definition, typically consume at low levels, where goods serve to relieve unhappiness and not to bring positive satisfaction.” In other words, “very poor people typically benefit less than moderately poor people from small increases in consumption—not more.” And this is even more true for the difference between the poor and members of the professional middle class (like most of us).

The same argument seems likely to hold in the case of education. A little bit more education can make a perceptible difference only at the upper levels. For a kid who can’t read much, reading a little better doesn’t help much. But learning a few more words could really affect the life of a kid taking the SAT.

More generally, relatively small changes in the quality of education at the bottom aren’t likely to have much impact on the life chances of poor kids. In contrast, a key skill or piece of knowledge may turn out to be just the “edge” that the child of a middle-class professional needs.

In other words, if I’m a poor kid and I hate school, why bother to work harder? The amount of additional work I’d need to put in to have it actually pay off in coherent satisfaction is much greater than it is for the middle-class child.

To add insult to injury, middle-class contexts are much more likely to foster effective learning. Work in schools populated by poor children is much more likely to be “work” with a more limited relationship to cognitive advancement.

This problem is intensified by the fact that education is to some extent a game of credentials. It isn’t so much the qualitative amount that you learn that matters, but instead whether you do or do not graduate and receive a diploma.*

The middle-class child is, in all likelihood, going to graduate. The only question is at what rank, with what GPA. There is a good chance, however, that the “average” inner-city kid won’t graduate. Therefore, any additional work she puts in on any given day is likely to be largely lost in terms the credential market will understand.

The upshot of all of this is that it may, in fact, not make much sense for poor kids, on a purely pragmatic level, to put more effort into her work on any particular day. There just isn’t enough marginal satisfaction received—either at that moment or in the future—to make it worth the sweat.

Of course, if activities in educational settings were intrinsically motivating, this wouldn’t be much of a problem. The end goal wouldn’t matter that much. But the truth is that most education in most places, especially in middle and high school, isn’t very enjoyable. And we haven’t been very successful at changing this, especially, again, in the most distressed schools.

What could we do to encourage marginalized students to work harder when the pragmatics of the situation indicate that it isn’t an illogical response just to look elsewhere in their lives for real payoffs?

Perhaps we should work harder to make education intrinsically rewarding and worry less about final outcomes. Could we imagine cutting back on reading and math instruction and focus on music and art and sports? Reading cool stories to children instead of trying to get them to learn boring reading skills? Maybe if we helped poor kids love school throughout their entire experience they might end up learning those other things as well, or at least not less well.

This is different from the usual “trades” vs. “college” education argument that revolves around the likely final employment resting place of these kids. It refocuses us on the now with not so much emphasis on what the learning in the now is “for.”

Most parents of poor kids would almost certainly oppose this. For good reason, they want their kids to learn like privileged kids. “Stop experimenting on my kids!” “How dare you say that it doesn’t matter what my kids learn!” And perhaps they are right.

But this leaves us in a conundrum. How do we find a middle path between the enormous abstract value that poor families often hold for education and the limited marginal utility of additional educational effort for their actual children?

  • The problems with the payoff from a diploma is complicated, of course, by the fact that the credentials achieved by poor kids are usually much less valuable than those received by the more privileged. As Wilson showed, many poor, inner-city high schools are actually red-lined by employers who treat graduation from them as a visible mark of a person’s inferiority. And the return to these kids from graduation is, in monetary terms, quite limited—although this increases, of course, with college education. At the same time, since poor kids may actually learn less in their classes, it may be the credential itself—however tainted it may be—more than the cognitive impact of their experiences in school that may be most important to their future life chances.]
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c s ^^ at first i thought u wrote all of it

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no, i did not write this, man.
\
i wish i would, i am no writer.

but the way the discussion is going, i thought, it will prove to be a good addition. i read it some where on line.
thanks man.

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That's the irony. If you ask individual people, they'll say yes, of course education is important. But they don't feel its important enough to provide to everyone, even though they think everyone SHOULD be educated.

And it doesn't end there. So many students in Pakistan ARE getting schooled, but they're ONLY getting a religious education. If AQ's comments hold true, then why are madrassas, which seem to be trying to answer the need for educating poor children, not focusing on maths, sciences, literature, reading comprehension, and those types of basic topics?

I don't get it. Is it just pure selfishness - that if I want to hold power in Pakistan and among Pakistanis then its in my best interest to get an education and deny it to others?

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you just have a higher tolerance fpr pain than he does. kartay raho....bardasht :)

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Im not sure who pays household workers less than living wages nowadays. we pay our cleaner around 3.5k for around 3 hours of work a day, she works in two houses next to each other so makes 7k. Which is more than I made for my first job in pak, and pretty much what an entry level grad earns. A steel mill technician makes 6k, for comparisons sake. A doctor earns 9k (after 2-3 years). And this is pretty much the standard rate for cleaners in our area (a relatively affluent one). The standard chowkidaar earning is 5-6k in our area. Once again, not that low.

So while its pretty easy to blame Pakistanies for the rich poor divide etc, bear in mind that its not slave labour, and all that stuff of demand/supply applies here too.

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3.5K is what - a weekly or monthly rate?

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alright man, my bad, domestic servants in Pakistan get fair wages and just decide to not send their kids to school, college and universities.

and yeah its not slave labour, they are always free to go on and take jobs in corporate pakistan.

dunno about grad salaries, one of my cousins who went to some local ..preston university... started off at 20K/month, and this was 4 years ago.

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that domestic workers cant afford Pak education is also a perception thats not entirely true. the present safai wali we have does send her daughter to college. it is not just a question of them not affording it, it is also about the attitude towards education. govt schools are virtually free in Pak, even if they're low quality, if they're really motivated to send kids to school they'd send them there.

domestic servants in pak can earn higher wages than taxi drivers, government workers, starter doctors, engineers and mbas. and I have made less than my safai wali at one point.

im sure there is a problem of exploitation in certain areas and groups, but it is certainly not universal as is supposed over here.

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I may be mistaken I recall reports I read that showed the disparity from an hourly wage perspective. since there is minimal focus on any minmum wage, benefits, defined work hours, defined time off, etc.

they probably dont send kids to schools because the kids are out working and making major bucks too, cuz like if a kid can make more than an MBA just doing odd jobs then why not get him started early, kid could retire at 35 then.

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well not retire, but then again no MBA in pak retires by 35 either :p.

I think the perception of a lot of people who dont send kids to school is that they didnt go to school either nor did their parents, and they did fine, why should my kid go. that attitude towards education is not limited to safai walay, I know people from lower middle class families who have the same thoughts on educating their daughters. on the other end of the spectrum there are people who go to amazing lengths, work extra shifts etc to ensure their kids can go to school, can get tuitions, and dont have to work. not just limited to cities, in rural areas too, education is often the hope for a lot of people to see their kids rise upto a level where they couldnt get. if the parents have that attitude, they will live without the money their kids will bring in. i know a family where the father earns 6-7k, and sends 4 children to school, 3 of them girls.

there is disparity in earnings, there is poverty, and there is exploitation. but it is not a homogenous issue or social group, and it isnt entirely one class victimizing another. and where regulation doesnt stop exploitation, market forces often do. if we didnt pay our safai wali the wages she wants, we'd have to be looking for another one. and we dont want that.

The Random Thread
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there is quite a bit of exploitation, the massi types who are basically indpeendent ontractors do better than the inhome domestic workers, and its rural areas compared to urban areas because it can become into servitude and in some cases its bonded domestic labor.

Add to it baygaar camp type factory practices and you have another issue.

Pakistan has a lot to do to protect its workers from exploitation. One of the biggest issues dealing with Pakistani manufacturers has been the inability to get ISO certs for CSR due to work conditions etc.

Anyways that is a different topic, coming back to education..

first there is a massive change in perspective that is needed in Pakistan, the vicious circle continues of uneducated folks and future uneducated generations, whether it is that they dotn see value, they cant afford to go to school (opportunity cost perhaps) or because they have been taught that a few siparas is all one needs. i dont know.

What I do know is that there is a mixed bag of issues, and access/opportunity is just one aspect of it.

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for me education help me to explore things
the more i learn , i come to know , that i don't know and i have to learn even more

education doesn't comes through degrees and i hate thoes words when people are saying that they are educated and so they are superior and these words describe that they are uneducated

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yeah the bonded domestic labour is mainly a rural area issue, especially in interior sindh.

in my experience, the wages of domestic workers in general in cities are usually not significantly lower than the wages of say government workers, or starting doctors/engineers/mbas. People do send their kids for the amount domestic workers earn. I know domestic workers who send their kids to school, and those who dont.

it is a complicated issue, and there is a lot of exploitation of lower class workers, however one cannot assume that those who employ domestic help in pakistan dont pay living wages.

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my brother there are 7 different education system running in Paksitan
1 madrassa system
2 chattai system in villages ( no medium, )
3 low level gov schools in cities ( no medium or so called urdu medium , board system)
4 normal gov schools in cities (urdu medium , board system)
5 normal private schools ( mixed medium , normally call them self english medium, board system)
6 good private schools ( english medium, normally british system)
7 elite schools ( for only elite class, normally british system)

and student from 5 can't be compared to 6 in real life , and they fail to stand in a queue for jobs with students from 6 and 7
and this thing discourage people to take their children out of schools

so
you think only giving the safai wali the wages she wants will solve the problem of education in pakistan
then it is not true
we have to bring only one education system in whole pakistan then something will change otherwise not

2 Likes
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with little work done on minimum wages and enforcement for domestic workers, they are ripe for exploitation, whether people do or dont is up to the goodness of their hearts..but conditions are present, largely unchallenged and absent from societal concerns that it could be a much bigger issue.

we can not assume that its not a problem either.

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^ we can say that it is not a universal problem however, or something all (or even most) domestic workers have. which is what I responded to.

that it could be a bigger issue is ofcourse possible.

Assalam o Alikum
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I concur

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monthly.