How one Indian judge wants to use a Warren Buffet approach to overhaul primary education

Legendary investor Warren Buffet is said to have built his success partly on a simple idea: "skin in the game." It's generally used in connection with financial risk: if you are investing money for someone else or are running a company, you're more likely to do a better job if some of your own cash is on the line. Although Buffet may not have coined the term, it's still regularly used to suggest that those who make decisions ought to be directly affected by the outcomes.

Allahabad High Court Justice Sudhir Agarwal seems to agree. In a well-reported judgment earlier this week, he directed the chief secretary of the Uttar Pradesh government to ensure that the children of any "persons who receive any perk, benefit or salary etc. from State exchequer or public fund, send their child/children/wards who are in age of receiving primary education, to Primary Schools run by Board."

The court was hearing a series of petitions in connection with the recruitment of teachers to various levels of government schools, a process that the bench acknowledged had been ruined by the "unmindful, irregular and casual approach of the officials responsible for managing such recruitment [and] lack of accountability and credibility as well as sincerity." After dealing with the specific issues raised by the petitions, Justice Agarwal decided to turn his attention to the general problems of primary education in the state.

India's government schools are a mess. The order explains this by categorising the primary schools of UP into three categories, which could very easily apply to any other state in the union.

*Elite Schools: "This category of Schools basically cater to the need of highly rich people, high class Bureaucrats, Ministers, peoples' representatives, like, Members of Parliament, Members of Legislative Assemblies and high-middle class people... These Schools have best kind of infrastructures, tutorial staff and all other facilities."
*Semi-Elite Schools: "[These are] run by normally some private bodies or individuals, catering to wards of lower middle class. Though infrastructure in these Schools is not so sophisticated and ultra modern as that of Elite Schools, still is much better and comparatively even tutorial staff is sufficiently good."
*Common-men Schools: "The number of students [in this category] constitute almost 90 per cent population of minor children in the State...  Virtually a complete lack of infrastructure one can find in these Schools. After more than 65 years of independence, these Schools are still struggling to have basic amenities for children, coming thereat, like drinking water, space for natural calls etc. Even classrooms are in extremely shabby and bad condition."

Justice Agarwal then went on to examine just how bad things are in the last of these categories. He pointed out that the very incentives to improve them are all wrong because of three reasons:

*No choice: "The common men's schools cater the need of Primary Education to only those poor people, whom Hon’ble Mr. Justice Krishna Iyer once said, “tiny million Indians”, who find it difficult to make arrangement for two times of meals, what to talk of other things. Whatever is made available by system they have no choice but to avail it in conditions “as and where it is”."
*Corruption: "The hard real fact is that these institutions, run by Board of Basic Education, are victim of highest level of misappropriation, maladministration and widespread corruption."
*Political mileage through appointing teachers: "A competition is going on for political reasons to make lacs of vacancies available in Primary Schools as a source to create committed voters by appointing persons, if not illiterate, but not really competent to teach children of Primary School. A competition is going on to somehow get such persons appointed as teachers in these schools whom they would not like at all to teach their own children."

Justice Agarwal's solution for this is simple, based primarily on morals and ethics rather than any interpretation of the law. His order directs every one who draws a salary from the government exchequer to send their children to "common-men schools" or risk getting fined.

How better to fix it than by forcing our pampered bureaucrats to send their children to them, instead of a fancy private school that will prepare the kids for university abroad? The solution seems immediately compelling, partly thanks to an element of righteousness (those babus ruined the schools, they should reap what they sow) and also because fewer and fewer of us are being employed by the government, so it becomes a solution that involves giving just desserts to them not us.

Moreover, it would have other benefits.

"Moreover, when Officials/Government servants would be required to send their wards for primary education in institutions maintained by the Board, they would become serious enough to look into the requirements of concerned Primary Schools and would ensure that same are made available and Schools are run in good/best conditions and standard, else it may affect their own wards."

Effectively what the order is insisting on is "skin in the game."  Indeed, the order, if implemented would even apply to the children of judges, so it's not as if Justice Agarwal is doing something that would only affect those in the executive.

What stands in the way, however, are various questions of law, seeing as the order is entirely based on a moral argument rather than a legalistic one. It would fall afoul of several provisions giving individuals liberty of choice in these matters, and actually implementing it would most likely require passing legislation making this mandatory; an unlikely outcome considering those who would be voting on it, Members of the Legislative Council, would have to send their children to those schools as well.