We don't need no education.

First, a Nobel Prize winning economist writes that education does not increase individual wealth or reduce inequality. While corporate profits are soaring wages are not rising in tandem. Most of the wealth is going to those who run monopoly type businesses. In the nineteenth century robber barons founded huge monopolies in railways, oil and telegraph so today the ' silicon sultans ' control around 90% of the markets in which they operate. Last year Prof Thomas Piketty caused a storm when he wrote that most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of those who already have assets, and hence can create more wealth through financial deals. Now, another professor writes that education does not increase the economic growth rate of a nation. Being teachers these professors hasten to add that education does provide more options and is necessary for all round growth of people, so as to enjoy life, but does not create wealth, either individual or national. In 1965, the labor force in France had a per capita income of $14,000 with less than 5 years of schooling while in 2010 countries with a similar level of education had a per capita income of $1,000. In 1960, China started with less education level than Tunisia, Mexico, Kenya and Iran and made less progress than them by 2010, but in terms of growth these countries were nothing compared to China. Increased spending on education misses out all the adults who are in low wage jobs today. On the other hand the world's richest man advises everyone not to be like him and not to drop out of college. What does it mean for us in India? We desperately need innovation without which we will be stuck in third world rut. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Ellison may be college dropouts but they all had high school education and are billionaires because there are huge opportunities in the US whereas in India the first rule is to make sure of survival. Recently we had a terrific drama about the number of people killed by the hot weather but it seems that lightning kills more people every year than any other natural disaster. As opposed to floods or heat lightning strikes a very small area so it is shocking that so many are killed by it. What has that to do with education? It shows that our population density is so intense that a lightning striking a tiny area kills many people. Too many people leads to poverty and studies show that bright students from poor families do 50% worse than those from middle class ones. Even worse, children from poor families have smaller brains than those from better off ones. The implications are that unless poverty is removed inequality will remain and money spent on education is not going to benefit poor children because their brains are already affected. The only solution is to reduce the number of people but poverty lovers, like the Congress and NGOs, will howl.