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Thursday, December 08, 2005
Accountability and incentives
Johan Norberg, in a follow up to the post I discussed here, writes:
Cross-posted on The Indian Economy Blog.
On the Indian highways we made 40 kilometers/hour when we were lucky. In China that is called a traffic jam.Well, the Delhi-based CCS is one organisation strongly advocating a school-voucher system, and I believe the idea is gaining some traction among the political classes. But do you really think the Commies will let it happen?
Now they are investing more in this [infrastructure], but it´s not about money as such, the problem is the lack of accountability and incentives. Indian bureaucrats keep their jobs no matter if they spend the resources on physical and social infrastructure or on themselves. This is a serious problem with the schools. Unionised teachers keep their well-paid jobs even if they are bad, abuse the children or don´t even bother to turn up. That´s one of the reasons why India´s illiteracy rate is absurdly high - 40 percent. As many Indians I met said, India desperately needs a school voucher system, so that the money follows the pupils, not the teachers.
Cross-posted on The Indian Economy Blog.
