After the Grameen Bank video, I remember reading articles that say micro-finance is not without its criticisms. Some poor farmers comit suicide because of some unfortunate and unexpected circumstances rendering them unable to repay their micro-debts. We can see examples like this in India, Bangladesh, and Cambodia, just to mention a few. A lot of people are now questioning whether or not micro-finance really works. My unfounded theory is that micro-finance is not the 'silver bullet' to the poverty problem. It has to be a combination of other things, for instance, the knowledge on how to use your money and manage it effectively. This knowledge can be found in education. Can we do something similar to micro-finance but in education? Maybe something called 'micro-education'.
So I typed in Google the word 'micro-education' and came across this interesting article.
Non-profit or for-profit?
Which kind of organizational structure is better for transforming education: a non-profit model dedicated entirely to the mission of change, or a for-profit model with serious financial backing? At a recent Stanford/MIT VLAB event, Sal Khan of Khan Academy and venture capitalist Philip Bronner had a great discussion on this topic (watch the first minute or so of this, then fast-forward to 1:08:20):
As an economist, I tend to gravitate towards the profit motive as second-to-none for allocating resources efficiently. However, the assumption underlying that conclusion is that value is reflected in people’s willingness to pay. In a market economy, if it costs me $10 to make a pair of sneakers and I can sell them for $20, then the market sends me the signal that I should be producing sneakers. Done and done.
But in education, people’s willingness to pay isn’t closely related to the actual value they receive. The main consumers of education — children — have no money of their own, so education is funded by parents or the government, either as an investment in children’s future human capital or out of a sense of social justice. Regardless, there’s no easy way to put a price tag on any individual bit of education (a music class, an economics lecture); therefore a market system to deliver educational services is going to be a very deeply flawed market indeed, and produce all kinds of crazy results. And as in the anecdote Khan shares, the profit motive can lead to private online colleges actually seeking out students who won’t receive a real return on their educational investment.
So there’s a strong argument to be made that educational institutions themselves should be non-profit: they should have a fiduciary responsibility to educational integrity, not their shareholders. But as Khan says later in the video, this clearly doesn’t extend to all the tools that are used in education. At an extreme, the school buses that drive kids to school are made by for-profit companies, as are the light bulbs and the computers in the classrooms. Nobody would want their kids to drive in buses, or learn on computers, that were developed by non-profits.
In other words, it makes sense for educational infrastructure to be supplied by for-profit organizations, even if educational institutions should be non-profit.
The question for education technology companies, then, is this: are we more like schools, or more like computers? Do we seek to deliver educational services ourselves, or do we seek to be a tool that educators can use to deliver those services? The names we choose are a good indication of which side of that divide we see ourselves on: “Khan Academy” sounds like a school (non-profit), while “Blackboard” sounds like infrastructure (for-profit).
Over the next few years, though, the line between educational services and educational infrastructure is going to get blurrier: Aplia and Grockit, for example, are at once educational infrastructure and educational content. In this new world, we’re going to need a new type of organization (possibly like a B Corporation) that blends the best of the non-profit and for-profit worlds, while avoiding the worst excesses of both. As Osman Rashid, founder of Chegg and Kno, puts it later on the same video: “You need the soul of a non-profit, and the mentality of a for-profit.”
This article can be accessed from http://microeducation.org/2011/04/29/non-profit-or-for-profit/.
So there is something already called "Micro-Education". But their mean of 'micro-education' might be a little different from the project I have in mind. Anyway, what makes it interesting to post this article is the author's question about whether or not educational institutions should be for-profit or non-profit. I think this is where Social Enterprise might come in to fill that gap.
My questions for further consideration would be:
1. How to tailor your curriculum to fit the scheduling demand of people at the bottom of the pyramid?
2. How to make sure that your operation is sustainable? To put it another way, who would pay?
3. What kind of education do people at the bottom of the pyramid need?
As an economist, I tend to gravitate towards the profit motive as second-to-none for allocating resources efficiently. However, the assumption underlying that conclusion is that value is reflected in people’s willingness to pay. In a market economy, if it costs me $10 to make a pair of sneakers and I can sell them for $20, then the market sends me the signal that I should be producing sneakers. Done and done.
But in education, people’s willingness to pay isn’t closely related to the actual value they receive. The main consumers of education — children — have no money of their own, so education is funded by parents or the government, either as an investment in children’s future human capital or out of a sense of social justice. Regardless, there’s no easy way to put a price tag on any individual bit of education (a music class, an economics lecture); therefore a market system to deliver educational services is going to be a very deeply flawed market indeed, and produce all kinds of crazy results. And as in the anecdote Khan shares, the profit motive can lead to private online colleges actually seeking out students who won’t receive a real return on their educational investment.
So there’s a strong argument to be made that educational institutions themselves should be non-profit: they should have a fiduciary responsibility to educational integrity, not their shareholders. But as Khan says later in the video, this clearly doesn’t extend to all the tools that are used in education. At an extreme, the school buses that drive kids to school are made by for-profit companies, as are the light bulbs and the computers in the classrooms. Nobody would want their kids to drive in buses, or learn on computers, that were developed by non-profits.
In other words, it makes sense for educational infrastructure to be supplied by for-profit organizations, even if educational institutions should be non-profit.
The question for education technology companies, then, is this: are we more like schools, or more like computers? Do we seek to deliver educational services ourselves, or do we seek to be a tool that educators can use to deliver those services? The names we choose are a good indication of which side of that divide we see ourselves on: “Khan Academy” sounds like a school (non-profit), while “Blackboard” sounds like infrastructure (for-profit).
Over the next few years, though, the line between educational services and educational infrastructure is going to get blurrier: Aplia and Grockit, for example, are at once educational infrastructure and educational content. In this new world, we’re going to need a new type of organization (possibly like a B Corporation) that blends the best of the non-profit and for-profit worlds, while avoiding the worst excesses of both. As Osman Rashid, founder of Chegg and Kno, puts it later on the same video: “You need the soul of a non-profit, and the mentality of a for-profit.”
This article can be accessed from http://microeducation.org/2011/04/29/non-profit-or-for-profit/.
So there is something already called "Micro-Education". But their mean of 'micro-education' might be a little different from the project I have in mind. Anyway, what makes it interesting to post this article is the author's question about whether or not educational institutions should be for-profit or non-profit. I think this is where Social Enterprise might come in to fill that gap.
My questions for further consideration would be:
1. How to tailor your curriculum to fit the scheduling demand of people at the bottom of the pyramid?
2. How to make sure that your operation is sustainable? To put it another way, who would pay?
3. What kind of education do people at the bottom of the pyramid need?
Good insight Rathana. There is definitely a need for promoting more "affordable" education initiatives, if not "non-profit", to cater to the people at the bottom of the pyramid. Micro Education does not necessarily need to generate a profit but should have sufficient revenue for long term sustainability.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of micro-innovation is interesting and I think it has significant appeal when seen as small benefits for individuals that as a collective have significant social impact. It would be easy for people to suggest such seemingly insignificant acts do not have enough impact and are therefore useless, but I think this is the typical human response when a problem seems too big to tackle.
ReplyDeleteMy background is in disability and one of the most critical ideas around supporting others is the idea that their goals need to be achievable, and significant to them, so as to motivate them to reach their goals. The idea of micro innovation builds from this as individuals are given the opportunity to move towards an ideal through small steps that lead towards the desired outcome. With micro-finance there is an opportunity for people to take a step closer to financial independence and freedom. It also has the important element of empowering people as they take on the responsibility for their live and that ripple effect is invaluable in moving away from the notion of charity and victimisation.
Getting back to the questions posed by Rathana I think the value in micro-education comes from working with the indivduals that will benefit and that it has a bottom up development, so it actually addressed the real issues.