In response to Umari Ayim's post about the practice of female-infanticide in India (poor people killing their baby girls because they can't afford to raise them and pay their dowries when they are of age), I suggested two ways to solve the problem:
1) A dirt-cheap and speedy adoption process, open to
locals and foreigners of any religion or orientation. There are many
people in the world who would give anything to have a baby girl. The
adoption process should probably include some monetary compensation for
the biological parents.
2) Legalization of early stage abortion
(up to 3 months or so) for any reason or purpose whatsoever, such as the fetus being the wrong sex. Abortion is awful, but it's not as awful as
parents killing their own children or abandoning them, or abusing them.
In other words, legalize the lesser evil to prevent a more terrible
one.
Don't Use Quota Systems To Enforce Equality
In response to this bit of news:
The Central Bank of Nigeria on Tuesday said it was currently working with banks to ensure that a certain percentage of the position of senior management and board members were reserved for women.I wrote this:
I think it's wrong to use a quota system to try to enforce equality in management or any other field.From Re: CBN To Reserve Bank Management & Board Seats For Women
A quota system might almost make sense if we assume that the only reason we don't see an equal number of women in senior management is because evil men refuse to promote competent female managers, but that's not true. The fact is that women don't aspire for leadership the way men do, because they think that is not their role in life. Most women think womanhood is about looking good and making babies so they tend to sacrifice their careers for family life. If a man gets a good job in a different city, his wife will resign from her job to follow him. If a woman gets the same opportunity, her husband will not resign to support her. Then there's maternity leave. Little things like that add up over time.
Even when a woman is trying to move ahead in the corporate world, other women will try to pull her back by branding her as a NaughtyWoman or spreading rumors that she must have slept with the boss. The few women trying to get ahead tend to rely more on their looks and the cuteness factor instead of concentrating on substance and performance, and it works for them to a point, but not to the very top. As a result, in banking and many other industrial sectors of Nigeria, the best candidates for top management roles are unlikely to be women.
This is not to say women don't have the ability to be great leaders. The problem is that they are not encouraged to develop their leadership potentials, so most of them don't do so. As a result, a quota system mandating that a particular percentage of senior managers must be women is going to result in a lower quality of leadership. It's not fair that women are not allowed to develop their potentials, but it's also not fair to shareholders if you prevent banks from appointing the very best senior managers they can find regardless of whether such candidates are men or women. An insufficiently competent senior manager can ruin any company, so you want the very best, male or female.
Such "pro-women" policies will also encourage female managers aspiring for top positions to relax. If I know I'm the only female manager in a company and the company is forced to appoint 3 senior female managers by law, then why should I improve my performance? If a woman is guaranteed a slot at the very top by virtue of her gender then why should she strive to be better than men? Currently, women at the top are respected because we know they must be very good to have gotten there, but once such policies are in place, that will no longer be the case. Do we want that?
I would like to see more women in senior management, but the best way to achieve that is by encouraging women to work harder and take their careers more seriously. It's by commending women more for working hard and being smart than for looking good. It's by not telling women that they are supposed to be "submissive". It's by helping your wife at home or hiring domestic helpers so she can work harder at her job. It's by celebrating women who are good at what they do for being good at what they do, and not for their beauty. By treating the disease and not the symptom.
Privatize Public Schools And Distribute Their Shares To The Masses
The Best Way To Privatize Public Schools In Nigeria
In the spirit of democracy, capitalism, and reducing the cost of government
In the spirit of democracy, capitalism, and reducing the cost of government
I believe a fully privatized educational system will be best, especially in a country like Nigeria in which the government is both poor and corrupt, and therefore incapable of funding or managing public schools effectively. Critics of privatization have pointed out that when government institutions are privatized, they end up being (1) controlled by the rich friends of the government and (2) unaffordable to the common man.Source: Privatize Public Schools And Distribute Their Shares To The Masses
If Nigerian public schools are all privatized, they could end up being controlled by people who have no interest in education and just happen to be rich, well connected, and willing to bribe. If all schools in Nigeria are private, we could end up with a country in which only rich can afford education. And that won't be ok because we all know what happens when the masses are not educated: you have a high crime rate, religious crises, etc.
However, our public schools are in a deplorable state. A few public schools are doing relatively well, but they are not really public schools anymore, because they charge all sorts of fees. We might as well privatize them too. We could try to convince the government to pump more tax-money into the worst public schools, but that would be like pouring more water into a basket. I believe the government should be more involved in setting educational standards, making sure WAEC, NECO, and JAMB exams are free of cheating, and properly marked, etc. (instead of running schools).
However, instead of simply selling public schools to the highest bidder, I believe every public school should be turned into a limited liability company, and 1 share of that company should be given (not sold) to every adult resident of the LGA the school resides in, and every current employee of the school.
The current principal of each school should be made the CEO, and the head teachers and current PTA officials made directors of each school. This will turn public schools into for-profit organizations that have a strong incentive to keep costs low, improve educational standards and find ways to make more money with the schools' land and resources. Public schools will no longer be an unproductive drain on our national resources.
This approach will put the schools in the hands of communities instead of just the governors' crony capitalist friends. The sense of ownership the community feels about the schools, as a result of their actual ownership, will encourage every individuals to help their schools in various ways, and to fight anyone that tries to damage the schools. If the officials the schools don't perform, they will be voted out in shareholder meetings.
Since the shares will be owned by both rich people and poor people in the community, the school is likely to pursue policies that make it possible for children of the poor to afford the privatized schools, such as academic scholarships and multiple tiers of service so rich students subsidize poor students. At the same time, they will avoid policies that can make the school go bankrupt (otherwise, the poor shareholders will get no dividends!)
There will be a healthy balance of empathy, social values, pragmatism, and capitalistic creativity and efficiency. It shouldn't be hard to try it out with a single public school to see how it turns out. We should start with schools that are currently in a very bad state, such as this one, and this one.
What do you think about school privatization in general, and this approach specifically? What are some of the challenges you envisage? Do you have any suggestions about how to improve this, or reasons why it may work or not work?
Posted by
Seun Osewa
Thursday, February 9, 2012
2:03 AM
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