Tuition is not producing inequality, nutrition is.

"Recently, the Chinese government announced a bold, sweeping and almost draconian crackdown on its booming educational tuition sector," wrote Chetan Bhagat. "China is no yardstick for policymaking for India." "And yet, we in India need to acknowledge that the overemphasis on tuitions is an issue here as well." Bhagat has qualified from IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, two of the most premier institutes for higher education in India, so he must be super intelligent. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people have an average Intelligence Quotient (IQ) between 85 and 115, healthline.com. Only 2% have an IQ above 130. The average IQ in India is 82, worldpopulationreveiw.com. That is not surprising as, "Malnutrition in children has risen across India in recent years, sharply reversing hard won gains, according to the latest government data," BBC. "India's latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS), which shows that children in several states are more undernourished now than they were five years ago, is based on data collected in 2019-20." "The first 1,000 days of life are crucial for brain development -- and food plays an important role," health.harvard.edu. "The ways that the brain develops during pregnancy and during the first two years of life are like scaffolding: they literally define how the brain will work for the rest of a person's life." "Those connections and changes affect sensory systems, learning, memory, attention, processing speed, the ability to control impulses and mood, and even the ability to multitask or plan. These connections and changes cannot be undone, either. How the brain begins is how it stays." A diet rich in proteins, essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals is essential for brain development. Malnutrition in women during pregnancy has been shown to predict an excess of diabetes, hypertension and heart disease in adult life in children of those mothers (Barker's hypothesis), wikipedia. A study by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty commission found that "Middle-class children benefit from a 'glass floor' protecting them from slipping down the social scale in Britain," BBC. "Parental education level and attendance at a private or grammar school all had a significant impact over and above the influence of academic attainment, it said." Interestingly, "The report suggests there is a clear correlation between the social background of a child's grandfather and eventual labour market success." "Fifty years of research has revealed" that "By some measures, 5-year-old children of lower socioeconomic status score more than two years behind on standardized language development tests by the time they enter school," news.stanford. edu. "Several studies show that parents who talk more with their children in an engaging and supportive way have kids who are more likely to develop their full intellectual potential than kids who hear very little child-directed speech." "Infosys CEO Salil Parekh saw his annual pay package jump to Rs 49.68 crore (Rs 496.8 million) in 2020-21," while it was Rs 342.7 million in 2019-20, business.standard.com. "Indians in the US, with an average household earning of USD 123,700 and 79 percent of college graduates, have surpassed the overall American population in terms of wealth and college education, according to a media report which cited the latest census data," Economic Times (ET). The Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI) report "gives a quintile-wise (bottom to top 20%) distribution on income statistics. It shows that even the top 20% of households earn less than Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100,000) per annum per capita. The bottom 20% of households earn just Rs 25,825 per year per capita," Hindustan Times (HT). With such difference in wealth is it any surprise that parents will endure any hardship to give a better start in life to their children? Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh " has directed the Education Department to explore all possibilities to offer languages such as 'French, Chinese, Arabic' to the students," so that they can emigrate abroad," indianexpress.com. So desperate are young men in Punjab to escape from India that they have spent a fortune on their wives to get educated abroad, so that they could go abroad on spouse visa, HT. Parents must give their best to children. Indian parents do what they can.