I am statistically “Educated” November 5, 2009
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This summer while I was teaching at a government school in Pakistan, I asked a tenth grade student, “Which is your favorite country in the world besides Pakistan?” He answered “Karachi”. Karachi is the most populous city of Pakistan. In the 11 years of this students’ education, his teachers had forgot to tell him the difference between a city and a country.
In another encounter, while a student was talking with me about religion, another student said, “Sir! he will not go to paradise because he is a Shia.” I asked that student, “Who is a Shia?”. He had no answer but he remained adamant that his colleague being a Shia won’t be going to paradise anytime soon.
As Policy analysts, we are “designed” to worship statistics. We often forget, how little these statistics mean in the developing world. The students I was talking with were not the exceptions but the rule in the developing world. They were a part of 56% Pakistanis who are statistically “educated”. Policy analysts will feel good about themselves when they realize that this 56% is a rise from ten years ago when this figure was about 40%. But what does this number really mean? May I dare say, NOTHING!!
It is happening all over the developing world. Teaching quality everywhere is abysmal. For those of you who are interested in International education do watch this video on quality of education at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOImnAOkjWs and think how do we approach the question of literacy in the developing world.
Muhammad Azfar Nisar – MPP/MIAS 2010
Sharing Educational Opportunity (or Why I’ll Give the News Another Chance) October 14, 2009
Posted by ippg in news.Tags: education, India, youth
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I’ve been thinking of quitting the newspaper. Every day for the past week I’ve woken up to news that’s left me distraught, grieving and very very angry – Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize as US drones turn parts of Pakistan to rubble and terrorists retaliate with suicide bombings, photographic evidence of sexual violence and torture amidst war in Iraq. So I decided, I’m done.
But today is a wonderful new day of faith. A seemingly inconsequential link on Facebook led me to discover Babar Ali, a 16 year old boy in West Bengal, India, who is changing the world from his own backyard. By day, Babar is a diligent, high-achieving student at a formal local school but in the afternoons he is teacher and headmaster to eight hundred other children from poor families who regularly attend school in his backyard. He, along with nine other volunteers like him, teaches the lessons as he learns them in his classes. And guess what, he’s been doing this since he was 11.
For everyone who’s interested, BBC News carried the whole story here .
I’ve been trying to figure out why his story moved me so much. And no, it’s not just because it’s the highlight of a really bad week. I think what amazes me the most is this young boy’s magical, infectious optimism. When he was 9 years old he discovered two things: One, that he could teach, he enjoyed it and was good at it. And two, that he should teach, because there were so many other children who could not afford the same opportunity. So this ordinary kid from an average family, armed with nothing but a purpose, started a school.
Of course he’s had some help along the way – donations pay for books, local officials help procure food supplies as an incentive to maintain attendance, and 9 other young men and women volunteer as teachers. But at the end of the day, it’s a very simple community-based model for delivering education to the poorest, and especially to children who work to help their families get by.
As a student of public policy, though, I’m itching to ask, has the model worked? Are literacy rates in Babar’s village actually falling as a result of his intervention (as some news reports have vaguely claimed)? How consistently are the kids coming to school (apparently, there’s roll call!)? How many girls v.s. boys are in attendance? All that and then I’m thinking.. upscaling, potential for replicability. But how do you replicate a 9 year old’s sense of responsibility and community? How do you replicate an initiative that’s being driven not by compensation but by shared motivation alone?
- Khadija Bakhtiar, MPP 2010
LAN Houses and truancy in Brazil October 1, 2009
Posted by ippg in news.Tags: brazil, education, ict
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A neat article on the explosion of LAN Houses in Brazil, and the contrasting tensions between greater digital inclusion, entrepreneurship, and education (or rather, truancy). Having visited a standard secondary school in Brazil, I can’t imagine that truancy due to LAN houses is particularly concerning–not much in the way of education is available in the public schools that poor Brazilians have access to. It seems like LAN houses could be an excellent platform for connecting educational services with children of poor families.
Poverty, discount rates, and “impatience” September 22, 2009
Posted by jasonized in study.add a comment
When we look at poor people, in general we observe behaviors that at first blush suggest that poor people have different discount rates–that is, that they greatly value money today over more money tomorrow, whereas non-poor people put less value on money today compared to more money tomorrow. High interest loans are an obvious example, but also the way in which households allocate resources, or the spending upon receiving an unexpected windfall have led past observers to wonder aloud about the “myopia” of the poor–and not incidentally, an effort to “educate” the poor on savings behavior.
Abhijit Banerjee of the MIT Poverty Action Lab might lead us to believe that this is the myopia of the economist. In his latest paper, The Shape of Temptation: Implications for the Economic Lives of the Poor, Banerjee uses some smart microeconomic modeling to show that temptations–the activities that provide immediate benefit but with large later costs–are declining with income–that is, that the intensity of temptation is related to one’s economic status. Stated another way, CONTEXT MATTERS. (Um, duh, but we are dealing with economists, after all.) And I quote:
…two individuals with identical discount rates but with different initial wealth levels can end up with very different levels of apparent patience: the initially poor agent will appear to be impatient and the initially rich one will appear to be patient.
Beyond striking a blow for the “context matters” approach to behavior, Banerjee is making a second point: we shouldn’t expect systematic differences in discount rates among culturally and geographically homogeneous populations–that is, economic status does not shape our “inherent preferences,” but rather the interaction of those inherent preferences with the environment.
Which, in my book, is a good argument: that the poor are not so “different” than you or I.
Randomized-control trials and the pillars of microcredit December 10, 2008
Posted by jasonized in news.Tags: dena karlan, finance, impact analysis, microcredit, poverty, randomization
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Via the FT, a great exposition on how little we know about whether (and how) microfinance works to improve the lives of the poor. It includes a rundown of some excellent randomized-control evaluations of microcredit, sequentially taking down supposed “pillars” of microfinance as not necessarily so crucial.
It’s centered on the work of Dean Karlan at Yale, one of the Innovations for Poverty Action folks. And while randomized-control trials aren’t any sort of panacea, I’m glad to see that they’re getting more play and significance in the mainstream press…especially since Berkeley’s firing up it’s rando with CEGA.
A successful fiscal expansion in the US requires a succesful fiscal expansion everywhere? December 10, 2008
Posted by jasonized in news.Tags: financial crisis, fiscal expansion, keynes, rodrik, stimulus
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Dani Rodrik notes that a Keynesian stimulus in the US will have extraordinarily limited impact if much of the money goes to buying now-cheaper imports. He poses a curious dilemma:
“…unless we come up with a solution to the credit constraints in the developing world, we are going to either endanger the effectiveness of Keynesian policies in the U.S. and other advanced nations, or risk a sharp increase in protectionism. Not a pleasant choice.”
He puts out two possible solutions: way more liquidity via the IMF, or a Tobin tax with revenues redistributed to developing countries. I can’t say whether either would work, but it is definitely an interesting thought that a successful US fiscal expansion may hinge on a successful global fiscal expansion. Has the US ever before so badly needed the rest of the world to march to the same tune?
Bill Gates’ policy message to Obama on education and foreign aid December 3, 2008
Posted by eldelph in news.comments closed
From the Chronicle of Philanthropy…
Gates Urges Obama to Maintain Education and International Spending
In a public-policy speech on Wednesday, Bill Gates warned President-elect Barack Obama against using the economic freefall to cut spending on U.S. schools or on health and antipoverty programs overseas. (more…)
Primer on Financial Crisis November 20, 2008
Posted by eldelph in Uncategorized.Tags: Add new tag
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For all those interested in understanding the financial crisis with a bit of historical background, this powerpoint is a great start. Developed by the UK organization New Economics Foundation, the presentation covers the modern financial system from its birth to its… death? and is presented in easy to understand layperson’s terms. Enjoy!
Chat with Dan Hymowitz (MPP ‘07) November 17, 2008
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ABOUT DAN
Dan Hymowitz (MPP ‘07) is a Scott Family Liberia Fellow with the Center for Global Development and is currently working closely with the National Coordinator of the Liberia Reconstruction and Development Committee (LRDC), a donor coordination and policy planning unit in the Office of the President. (Think “senior advisor.”) Currently he is serving as the LRDC representative to the Poverty Reduction Strategy Technical Support Team. He is also working closely with several nontraditional donors who are developing projects in Liberia.
Dan completed a Masters of Public Policy at GSPP in 2007 where he focused on economics and global development. He also worked with a small research team on a project sponsored by UC Berkeley and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) which compared the market potential of three point-of-use water treatment technologies. In Summer 2006, he carried out a field trial in rural Bangladesh. Previously, Mr. Hymowitz worked for the U.S. Department of State in the Office of Agriculture, Biotechnology, and Textile Trade Affairs and also served as a policy analyst for the Slum Rehabilitation Society in Mumbai, India. Before graduate school, Mr. Hymowitz worked in Communications, primarily as a minor league sports broadcaster.
We talked to Dan in Liberia on November 6. Notes from our conversation follow–click the “More…” link.
Good international map visualizations November 14, 2008
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All you mapping fans will like Show/World. I recommend it for good quick visualizations that compare nations of a variety of economic, political, and other factors.
Also, if you haven’t seen it before, check out the Many Eyes online tool. I’ve uploaded numerous data sets here for good, quick visualizations. Besides maps (like this one) they allow really cool visualizations with a lot of complexity (like this one).
