what will you get from education in India ?

The discourse of schooling in the media is that education leads to a bright future through merit alone, that nothing is required other than commitment and hard work.3 For many, however, the dream of a bright future is not realized. As we showed in chapter 5, the majority of students entering primary school leave during the first eight years. And despite the extraordinary achievement a secondary school degree represents in Malawi, having completed secondary school offers very little in the way of employment, especially for villagers without connections in the city. Money also matters. Primary school is free in principle, but there are costs for uniforms, fees, and time lost to family responsibilities, a major reason for leaving school.4 For secondary school and university, where the cost is higher, those with outstanding scores may get help from a scholarship. For most, however, someone must pay for tuition plus other expenses: boarding school for secondary students, accommodations, food, and miscellaneous fees at university. Understandably, those who complete each stage proudly emphasize the signs of their merit—their marks, the various examinations mastered, their degrees—but say less about their good fortune in obtaining resources, whereas the stories of those with less schooling emphasize the lack of resources—a father died, a cash crop failed. Most Malawians we interviewed about their careers first said that merit alone matters: they applied for a job and were chosen. What are less often credited are the enormous advantages of those who come from more privileged backgrounds, as do virtually all the members of the national and cosmopolitan elites. James, a high-level broker whom we interviewed in 2010, had a charmed career—it appears to be all merit—but it is a career that was built on the foundation of well-to-do parents. James worked as the “right-hand man” Chapter 6 108 of the American country director of a big INGO. Although James’ father grew up in a village, the father became an officer in a regional bank. James himself is a city boy: primary school in Lilongwe; secondary school in a prestigious school in Dowa District, then the University of Nairobi. When we asked why he had gone to university in Kenya, he said it was because his parents moved there and they sponsored his fees. After finishing, he worked in businesses in Nairobi and then in Malawi, completing an MA in England. He joined the INGO in 2007. He read an advertisement, and was interviewed and selected. When we asked why he moved from business to an NGO, he said, “You know the job market in Malawi, NGOs are somehow dominant.” James said that he would soon need to find another job since the contract for the organization was to end in 2011. Asked whether he was confident he could get another job, he laughed and said “hopefully” and “I have gotten used to the NGO sector.”5 Not all the cosmopolitan and national brokers that we interviewed had such smooth careers, but almost all of them had the advantage of at least one relative with a good job in in the government, an NGO, or a business organization.