Some Hard to Believe Truths About the Children Who Occupied the First and Last Benches in Schools!

Today morning a cousin shared a truth that he or some one else like him might have experienced in life through the latest real time messaging application now familiar to all as WhatsApp : The message read like this:

"First bench doing job and last bench doing business. Truth of school life. A first bench student knows the answer to every question (problem), but the last bench student knows how to face every problem!"

Yes, there are enough examples that you could find to prove that this is true.

I too am too tempted to agree with this statement wholly and wholeheartedly.

During my school days, I have been more-or-less one of the first type who sat on the first bench mostly always. We were the so-called class toppers who were the pampered best students of the teachers. We were often the role models our teachers pointed to our not-so-fortunate back bench sitters. We hardly got an opportunity to notice the faces of those sat behind us in the back benches. The last bench ones were not the favorites of the teachers, but they were no doubt our heroes! Because, they were good at many things that we could hardly think of accomplishing in those days, other than perhaps scoring the marks in the test papers.

Rose Garden in a Private Suburban Indian School Campus!

Thrust Mainly towards Screening High Scoring First Bench Sitters and
Weeding Out the Low Performing Last Bench Sitters!

Perhaps, that could be one reason that I tried to change my image during my senior days with a bit success. In fact that helped me to experience the advantages of both to some extent!

But being nurtured for the first bench, I was bound to become a servant or naukar doing service or naukari and I became an accomplished naukar among the vast group of such naukars all around. But with my bits and pieces of last bench experiences, I could no doubt notice the poor slavish state of minds that my colleagues mostly possessed with little scope for trying out any new things even if it could make their own lives much better.

They were not trained to face challenges. They have been trained to follow the established legacy of work culture as per instructions only! Most of our bosses too were not much different, because they too were only naukars with a little bit more accomplishments than the rest of us!

Many of us, during the course of our naukari acted the double role of dogs and gods! We understood nothing more than that, to be very frank. We kept remembering our school teachers and our over ambitious parents who either patted or scolded us for keeping us the disciplined children who never ever ventured to question the established ways of knowledge and culture.

In India, our colonial masters needed literate servants in limited numbers and hence the schools that produced such servants were much less in number during the formative years of young nation. But later, the demand rose and we created more and more such schools and educational institutions that continued with the same methodology of teaching and training!

So we had only teaching and training institutions catering only those in the front benches. We cared little for the back and last bench ones. But fortunately, among them were the ones who did not need any formal teaching and training. Among them were the few borne leaders who mastered the skills to face problems instead of selecting stereotyped answers to problems!

I had been an admirer of those who sat in the back benches. Some of them could turn their initial misfortunes to great fortunes in later years. How can I forget the back bench heroes of our times?

Dhirubai Ambani, Bill Gates, Jack Ma etc lead the long list. On the other hand, we the disciplined and well liked ones who occupied the first benches kept doing our servant roles receiving the ten chakrams of Padmanabhadasa. 

I am not telling that servants like us are not required. We are indeed the work force who are doing the jobs. All kinds of jobs!

But regrettably, we are more in numbers than the job opportunities for us to act. We do not know how to create jobs. We only know how to do the jobs that are demanded from us. When we are in great numbers than the job opportunities, the demand for us goes down and as a result our value too!

So those of us of the first bench sitters either struggle to get jobs or struggle to get more value for our jobs.

But the few who sat behind us face our problems differently in a way that we never understood in the beginning until they told us the details. And we find them making value and wealth in such a manner we never could understand well.

So they keep staying as our heroes. We envy them  and secretly tell all bad things about them out of our envies.

But we need more of them for us to think and act differently. We need more of them to lead us. Without them we cannot do our service! We need them to tell us what to do! They are our entrepreneurs and business men. They are the job creators. They are the ones who find ways of creating wealth and enabling us to work! We need them in right proportions among us. Those naturally getting developed by sitting in the back benches are not enough. We really need more of them.

But how can we possibly make more of them? Can any of us of us of the first bench type be made to be like them? What should we do in our schools?

Any ideas ?

Progressive Ideas for Creating More Jobs and More Income for Governments that Care!

Many of you might have come across this Chinese proverb: ' Give me a fish, I will eat for a day; teach me to fish, I will eat for the life time!'

Have you really understood the meaning?

Many of our philanthropy even now work on the principles of the first part of the above proverb. We try to help others by giving them a fish or some money or some other such thing  that they take it , consume it and fall back to the level that they were earlier. We do not try to create a situation wherein those whom we help do not fall back to the situation they were earlier. Simply put, we simply do not care to facilitate people to live a meaningful life of their own!

Many governments do the same thing. My country, India is a typical example. The Indian government reportedly spend or reported as being spent a good part of its earnings to give subsidies to the poor! They try to distribute subsidized food, LPG, diesel, kerosene, electricity, water, housing, etc by making these things a few rupees cheaper for the people who are not able to earn an income above some prescribed minimum levels. 

Let us find how it goes by some examples. Suppose that the electricity production cost as per the prevailing inputs is some thing around Rs.4 per KWh or unit. Suppose that the government make a scheme by which they are giving a subsidy of Rs.1 per every unit consumed by a house hold which is declared as low income whose electricity consumption is only about 30 units in a month or 360 units in a year. India perhaps has over 100 million of such houses. So the one rupee subsidy means a whopping 360x100x1= 36000 million rupees per year. Effectively the poor people got a benefit of 360 rupees per year or 1 rupee per day. It is less than the money you normally give to a beggar. Perhaps some  beggars might even abuse you if you do that.

But imagine the great money the government lost. They could have used the money for doing some great and useful work such as making some hospitals run better, making some existing roads well maintained, etc etc.

It is just an example. These subsidies do not make any impact in the life of any of the beneficiaries. Perhaps it helps the government officers and staff to adopt corrupt practices and corner a big chunk of that money for themselves. Perhaps some politicians in power also might get some of it from the officials by doing some arm-twisting tactics!

Same is the case with all the other subsidies. India is indeed a country of subsidies. It is the best and the easiest method by which the government can waste the governmental income. Giving a rupee each to thousands of beggars really does not require much effort! And it is also the best method by which public money could be spend without the auditors taking note of any irregularities!

Instead of giving the people a fish for a day, it would have been much better for the country to enable the people to fish. That is enabling the people to fetch for themselves by providing opportunities for them to fish. In other words, it means creating opportunities for people to get meaningful and remunerative employments or jobs for themselves that they no more require the peanuts given by the government as subsidies!

But creating opportunities for jobs is not as easy as giving alms and escaping from the greater responsibilities. For that the first and foremost requirement is to have a government that really cares for the people. You need a government made of matured and visionary leaders who could drive the governmental systems to perform.

Such governments would make laws and rules and ensure such rules actually work in facilitating the country to progress in such a way that unemployment levels keep declining year after year.

If the unemployment levels keep increasing, that merely shows that the government is ineffective and useless. It is a direct indication of a careless and non-performing government.

Now the question is whether it is possible for a government to enhance employment opportunities without it actually getting bankrupt? In my opinion, it is possible. Let us see how a government would move ahead in this case and what are the various options that the government could attempt.

Step No.1 : Government should spell out its policy of plans clearly with a time bound manner. If privatization is a policy, government should declare the list of businesses and services which are not to be done by the government. 

Step No.2 : Government should stop all subsidies and the money so saved should be distributed for existing and new ventures to improve government services and functions. If more people are required to be employed for this it should be done without hesitation. Money may also be given to private enterprises as grants for developing systems where the activities cannot sustain economically initially. For example, government may give subsidy to start new air routes, rail routes, bus routes etc where there is not enough remunerative traffic initially till such times the volumes of business become sustainable.

Step No.3: Government should consider lower corporate income tax and other tax concessions to all companies who keep growing with regard to direct employment with individual employee incomes with taxable incomes. Companies who use their surplus incomes to idle or used to acquire assets and employment abroad should be taxed at higher rates.

Step No.4 : Companies that earn export incomes by exporting locally manufactured items should be taxed at lower rates. However, those companies which export ores and minerals should not be considered for this benefit.

Step No.5: Incomes and profits out of educational services and agricultural activities above a minimum limit should be made taxable. Lands which are kept non productive should be levied penal taxes or should be made liable for take over by the government.

Step No.6: Substantial incentives to be provided for industries and businesses to set up offices and facilities in smaller cities. Unsustainable growth of metros should be prevented.

Step No.7: Corporate expenditure towards Research and Development, import substitution efforts, environmental management and workmen safety should be tax free provided the companies substantiate growth in these areas by employment creation. 

Step No.8 : Laws should be made that would allow real estate development for rental purposes. Real estate developers should be allowed to establish estate management companies.

Step No.9 : Law should be made to make the private hospitals to provide mandatory and time bound medical reports to patients and their medical insurance companies. It should be mandatory for the hospitals and doctors who provide medical services for a fee, to give such reports with proper bills which should enhance employment opportunities.

Step No.10: All government services such as land records, property registration, national identity, voter id, vehicle registration, licencing, company registration, policing, judicial services, infrastructure, etc should be enhanced with the involvement of private participation. Job creation data in these areas should also be maintained. There should also be a national job safety fund similar to the national pension fund, which provide subsistence allowances to its members during the time they become jobless. 

There are hundreds of such things that the government could do if they are really caring for the people!

And it is always to be remembered that more employment in the country means more income to the government. More income to the government means more effective its performance.

So more than any thing else, the first priority of any progressive government should be to generate jobs. Not merely the jobs that provide peanut incomes, but jobs that provide decent incomes!

Out of many parameters to judge, job generation should be the first criteria to assess the performance of any government!

[You may also read about enhancing employment in India]