Is free laptops a good initiative?
The Punjab’s Youth Development Programme’s website says: “The objective is to provide free laptops to 100 thousand brilliant students currently studying at public sector colleges and universities or are high achievers of the Boards of Punjab in Matriculation.” So, it is not a scheme for the poor, it is a merit scheme for rewarding ‘brilliant’ students, though imposing the restriction that they have to be enrolled at public sector colleges and universities and so imposing some political correctness does take out the minority that goes to higher cost private colleges/universities.
A caveat should be added here that autonomous institutions like GCU and Kinnaird are in the list and given that fees of these ‘autonomous’ institutions have been allowed to increase substantially, the ‘public’ institution restriction, as a way of limiting the reach of middle or high income groups, gets less stringent.
The website goes on to say that students getting marks above a certain bar at these institutions, all MS, LLM, M Phil and PhD students (MA students stand excluded) and top 100 position holders of intermediate and secondary boards are eligible. Students from private institutions and those who have availed such facilities before or are on HEC scholarships are not eligible to benefit from the scheme. Those who are eligible have to be registered and have to be ‘revalidated’ from their respective institutions, and they also have to sign an ‘Undertaking’, before they can get the computer, that declares that they are eligible, they will use the computer for academic purposes, they have not availed similar facilities before and they will not sell the computer.
There is the larger issue of why the state felt that giving computers was a good idea – it is spending Rs 4 billion, out of money that was supposed to be for school level education and not for higher education, on a hardware that loses value fast. But be that as it may. That has been done.
While some of the conditions that have been imposed, for eligibility, make sense, the condition, in the undertaking, that the owner will not sell the computer, is the most curious one. There is a lot of debate, in economics at least, especially in the welfare and social protection area, about the efficacy of such ‘conditions’ and about ‘tying’ help to certain actions.
An economist did a very clever study sometime ago. He compared the price people paid for Christmas gifts, bought for loved ones, with the value that the recipient would put on that gift. As expected, there was quite a difference between the two: recipients valued it for less than the price paid as their ‘need’ for those goods, in general, tended to be less than what the gift-giver had assumed. Assessing the needs of loved ones is hard enough, assessing ‘needs of strangers’ (Ignatieff’s book by this title is a good introduction) is notoriously hard. Then why ‘condition’ their behaviour and try to constrain it and/or shape it. Is this sort of paternalism, clearly limiting the sovereignty of individuals, acceptable and/or needed?
Since there have been some news items saying that some of the computers that the government has already distributed have made their way to the Hafeez Centre in Lahore, for resale, the government has asked the police to get more vigilant and prosecute those who sell and buy these computers. Is this the right way to approach the issue?
The government decided that it will give computers to people to: a) recognise/reward brilliant students, b) bridge the digital divide, c) build political capital through a quick and visible action, and d) appear to be doing something in education. Recognition of brilliance of students does not require for them to keep the computers, not does the building political capital part, or the part about appearing to do something. It is only regarding the digital divide that Punjab government need worry, if students do sell their computers. But are students not in a better position to decide whether they need these computers or would rather have something else in the place of computers? Why does the government want to insist that while they will ‘reward’ brilliance and transfer ownership of these computers but on the proviso that people undertake not to sell them if they do accept to take them? It is not really needed.
As a general principle, when a person decides to give something to another, the principle is that post transfer it belongs to the other person, for them to use and dispose off as they deem appropriate. Why ruin a good gesture with impractical conditions?
The majority of students are likely to keep the computers, while a minority will find ways of selling them. Punjab government should not see this as a criticism of their policy choice of giving computers. There are plenty of other reasons for criticizing their policy choice. And the idea of threatening traders and potential sellers and buyers with police harassment and legal action are just childish and churlish: just because you happen to be the government and have the police under you does not mean that you need to deploy them for this as well. It is much better to let people be: if they use the computers wonderful, if they need to do something else with the money they can get from the second hand market, so be it. They will always find a way around prosecutions and harassment/prosecutions will only get PML(N) bad press, undermining their building political capital objective that they had.
A lot of politicians have problems with the BISP programme of giving Rs 1,000 per household per month to the needy, and one of the reasons is they do not like giving cash to people; but at the same time on the one hand they are okay giving untargeted subsidies like Sasti Roti, and giving computers on the other. But then when some people do not like what they give, the threat is to use the law against them. Strange. Surely what is needed is a deeper rethink of the state’s role in welfare. And this needs to happen across all the political players in the country.
The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at [email protected]
The apportioned funds could have utilized more effectively by upgrading the public school with basic necessities. Many public schools even in Islamabad, the richest and well funded city of Pakistan, lack fans, heaters, desks, etc. Why do the politicians always come up with strange offers like
a) Yellow cabs; Which people start using as private cars),
b) Motorways; Billions of Dollars worth roads, which only Developed countries have, and in Pakistan they are rarely used. A better option would have been improving the conditions of roads within cities and also the link roads between many cities and rural areas which are so narrow, only one car can travel on it at a time and majority of intercity and rural area roads are like that.
Many of these far fetched schemes come from Shareef Brothers. Why do people even trust these nalaiq brothers at first, and I am Punjabi myself, so no communal message intended. Instead they should use this funds which can benefit the most people, instead of very few and privileged.
good effort by faisal bari but could have been more interesting if he had made some comments about the real purpose of laptop disribution and that is to attract youth as claimed by pti. this is the biggest political gimmic of the century. will all the next generations of students get laptops? if they had to do it, should have been done properly by giving them to universities and colleges and libraries so more people could benefit.
Laptop giving is huge amount of waste of money,this money could be used in school infrustructer development
Political bribing to our youngsters. This money could have thousand other best ways to promote education on mass level. To eradicate poverty on mass level by establishing micro-financing without interest to make the poor stand on their feet.
Sharif Brothers are in a position and should have given Laptops from their own pockets. It would have been much better to give interest free loans to bright students who need financial assistance to pay tuition fees both for studies in Pakistan and in reputed foreign universities and purchase of computers etc to be paid back when they enter in practical life. Modalities be worked out for relevant collaterals and may use the tax payers money for the same. So it will be a ongoing process.
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