Global Students in the Global Commons... Or, Mere Wishful Thinking?

Global Students in the Global Commons....or, Mere Wishful Thinking?

Ganga Prasad G. Rao
http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar


I was never the best in my class, at least through school. Nope, not even the top ten. And yet, I wrote a PhD thesis at Penn State. Now I wonder whether all those ahead of me made it better than me. Many did, but some did not. And not because they weren't interested. Foreign studies are quite resource-intensive. The string of tests and exams that must accompany the application cost quite a bundle, as does the application fee at many universities. Add to it the airfare and partial funding, (not to mention the winter jacket and $25 haircuts!), and the numbers turn daunting, especially for those from middle-class backgrounds unwilling to mortgage their parent's home for personal gains.

But where is this leading to. Hmm, ... to a thought quite concrete and serious. The world is rampant with inequality, especially for students. Though societies increasingly prize true intelligence, free flow of intellect is impeded for various reasons – for lack of resources or on account of various global events, strife and conspiracies. An outright genius in one nation misses out the good life for want of opportunities, information, institutions and resources, while another, inferior by orders of magnitude in another nation, climbs to the top merely because he was the least dumb among frogs in the local community well! Then there is the matter of separation of talents and its 'aficionados'. There is little logic to a world in which geniuses in certain fields of art or science live 12 hours and many Berlin Walls away from those who would nurture them and bring out the best in them. That's not equal opportunity, millenium goals not withstanding! In fact, I'd go a step further, even if on a limb, and assert that there are many parents who are secretly disappointed with their children - parents who believe their children do not appreciate the sacrifices made for them; parents who wish their children, for their own good, learned their lesson early in life; parents willing to break out of the traditional mold of protective parenthood to appreciate the need for justice, opportunity and equality in the broader community. What we need, more than empty rhetoric, is optimal re-allocation of the future generations across this diverse world in a manner that maximizes their potential and their contribution to society, even while providing them the right incentives early in life.

Suppose we do not endow children with either citizenship or property at birth. Suppose they must 'earn' their citizenship and their livelihood by competing one-on-one with all students worldwide. True, various inequalities and obstructions persist across nations to this day. For the moment, let us wish that away by providing for a formal system of 'handicaps'. Now suppose students worldwide wrote a global-citizenship-cum-placement exam at the end of 12 years of schooling. On one side, 50 million hopeful students looking forward to the best that this world can offer in terms of citizenship and career, and on the other,130 countries searching for the best minds and citizens of the future from the global commons, and a million corporations searching for their employees of the future. A giant database of participants, their academic records along with their handicaps and their preferences on one side and, on the other, a database of countries, universities, ('step-parents') and future employers lining up for students/citizens/employees of certain interests and abilities. Add an algorithm that maximizes joint utility of market participants, and what you have is an optimal matching of student interests and abilities with country/employer/university needs.

A global academic placement exam that comes with citizenship offers is likely to provide the necessary incentive for citizens of both rich and poor nations to compete, especially if passing the exam enables these budding students to 'corporatize' themselves and trade their worth on the 'academe-cum-citizenship' 'stock' market. Suppose each student participant was given a certain number of 'shares' based on his performance in the exam and his handicap. Suppose each student was permitted to sell his/her shares to fund further studies. The 'student-corporate' could now fund his/her studies at the best university that (s)he can afford and that accepts him/her, with the proceeds of the share sale. Who would buy them? Parents and schools, informed investors, his 'mother country', and especially those shrewd in evaluating the potential of the young will not mind investing in the hope they will benefit when that person's 'networth' multiplies over the years with his earnings and contribution to society. After all, a genius in hand is worth more than a million 'ornery' heads! Wouldn't that be to the common good of children, parents, nations and their economies? (Then again, who would have thought Prasad would end up writing humor columns of no interest to anyone!)

Great visions?........or mere hallucinations?