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My thoughts ... The Education system in Maldives (1) - Privatization, A road to class differentiation ?


Privatization a road to class differentiation ?

I ended up lucky to have been among the generations in Maldives that went to school with people from all classes, backgrounds and moral standards ... I had the opportunity to go to the same school where the son of the richest man went .... to the school where the daughter of a Ministerial family went ... to the school where the poorest man's son went .... to the school where the ordinary friendly next door neighbor's daughter went ... to the same school where the president sends his children ...

Wonder whether this will be the situation in Maldives in 2030 ???

The government introducing privatization in education system may have benefits, and I must say I fairly do agree to those advantages as any other in the nation. But my thoughts take me to a place where I don't expect most people go into ...

Well, my thinking maybe a bit "radical" or bit too "extreme" as some may put it, but I guess no harm in listening to what a barely 20 year old thinks!

Now there are different levels or standards in PRIVATIZED SCHOOL:

Lets start with the rich guy, now when he takes up a school and runs it, he will bring in quite standard professionals to manage the school, probably from Australia or UK, with the quality service and amazing professional management, comes expensive tuition fees.

Imagine a normal middle class guy getting hold of a school and trying to run it. He will try his level best to get teachers and management staff from maybe India and Srilanka, the close neighboring countries, his quality of education will be at medium standards and fees will be middle class range.

And finally the poor lad who is bright enough to run a school ends up managing a school with local teachers and some foreign teachers trying to earn a bit more ... Now here the standard is just to the mark and the fees are cheap and affordable.

NOW

The fancy rich guy sends his kid to the rather posh school to get his children high standard and quality education.

The Middle class guy sends his son to the medium standard middle class school where the kid gets medium standards of education.

Finally the poor lad sends his child to the normal rather poorly manged school ... with lower standards and quality than any other school....

FINALLY

The rich lad who comes out of the posh school sits in an AC office and drives the latest expensive Mercedes .. well he gets richer day by day... Business as usual.

The friendly middle class chap who comes fresh out of his medium standard school ends up as an office clerk or the friendly bank officer ... guy owns a "HONDA WAVE T something.. something "

and now comes the poor lad ... straight from school he comes out to the streets replacing the "Bangaalhee" actively on road works and public works ... poor fellow walks home ...

.....

So there it is ... Class differentiation at it most fullest form ... these are thoughts of a dumb kid like me I guess .... so what do you think???

Comments

shushe said…
i fully agree wit u maeed. Nice concept n great work... this may b sumthing most wouldn't think of n u have brought this into light :)
Maeed said…
thank u shushe ... :D
Unknown said…
very true. by imposing this policy, i should say that the constitutional right to free and fair education for all has become a dream..this policy is indeed a whip wrapped in glitter paper!
shushe said…
a whip wrapped around glitter!? heheheh where did u get that hanafy? it is sure that hanafy would take the legal side of everything
Maeed said…
hahahah ... exactly heheheh
whip wrapped in what ever....maeed you just wrote what i've been trying to speak out all this time...c the effects wont be seen in 2030...its already there....see ghiyaasuddin ? although the government pays the fees for some poor lil kids...all the other f*cking expensive sh8t has to be bought by the parent...

and here we are talking about a parent (mostly dad) who has to run the family of four kids, a wife and a sick mother....with his government salary of Rf 9000....after paying
Rf 12000 for rent
Rf 2000 for electricity and water
Rf 3000 for food and clothing...and
Rf 2000 or whatever for the sick mom's medicine...


and then after all this...the poor guy has to pay a total of USD$800 (Rf 10280) for 4 kids in school...

AIN'T THIS A PUBLIC JOKE????
Unknown said…
The points that you make can be partially elevated by merit, in the Maldives its a A-levels and the O-levels. True the kids who go to the more posh private school would do better yes. From here the state should come into play and give out scholarships for further studies first based on merit and then on the families income status. Thus the bright kids from the public schools getting to go on first class degrees abroad. And the cycle for that student and family for bring on poor strata would end.

somewhat you could argue that vice versa could happen to a rich kid who just wasted the parents money.
Maeed said…
Agreed with Behya ... :D