The S-Shape Curve: Education-Based Poverty Trap

Last time we explored the disappointing quality of public schools. But possibly the private-school system with a demand-driven strategy might crack the problem of education quality. 

When asked to create a collage to represent what parents thought education would bring to their children, many of the parents put pictures of gold, diamond jewelry and recent models of cars. This suggests that parents seem to see education primarily as a way for their children to acquire wealth. 

Like what we explored previously, parents see education as a lottery ticket, not as a safe investment. 

The belief in the S-shape means that parents are more likely to put their educational eggs in the basket of the child they find most promising, making sure she gets enough education rather than spreading the investment evenly across all their children (unless they are unwilling to treat their children differently from one another). This, however, leads to an education-based poverty trap, and in reality, there shouldn’t be one. But the parents are behaving as if there were a poverty trap by believing that the benefits of education are S-shaped. 

Teachers assigned to the bottom track were less likely to teach. A report on the state of education in India showed that teachers are anxious to avoid being posted in remote “backward” villages, and one practical reason is the inconvenience of commuting or of living in a remote village with poor facilities. A young teacher also noted that it was impossible to communicate with “children of uncouth parents.”

The S-shape curve leads people to give up — both parents and teachers. Teachers ignore the students who are falling behind and parents stop taking interest in their education. This creates the education-based poverty trap.

It is therefore clear why private schools don’t do much better at educating the average child, since their point is to prepare the smartest children for difficult exams, leaving many left behind inevitably.

This creates a huge waste of talent in the poor, where many of them may have suffered from misju

dgement such as parents giving up on them too soon, teachers who never tried to teach them.

Education systems in developing countries simply fail the two basic tasks: giving everyone a sound basic set of skills and identifying talent.