Go on admit it. For all your talk about standing on your own two feet, and looking after yourself and your family, as soon as you have children you start to look around for charities to help you bring them up. Your chowkidar, your maid, your gardener, your driver, all your employees they get by without seeking charities to help them raise their children, but for you, the idea of raising your child without charitable aid sends you into a tizzy of self doubt, angst and worry. How will your child ever get on in life without the benefit of an education set up by a charitable organization?

So as soon as your toddler can toddle, you are seeking out a charity to educate your children, and with that comes lots of puja, prayers and sleepless nights worrying until finally, with gods grace, and if it is his or her fate, your child is accepted into a charitable institution who’s fees you can afford. – Of course the schools you want for your children are not run like a charity. If they cater to some poor children it is usually because they have been forced to by government legislation, or threatened with legal action. These schools fight tooth and nail to ensure that only certain types of children /families are admitted, and they make up admission rules so that once one sibling has benefited from being included in the charitable institution, others in the same family are also favoured. And these charities also make rules that say that the children of the educated will also get preference over the children of the undereducated.

Now you will not be alone if you begin to question the charitable nature of these institutions that favour the rich, the educated, and those whose family members have already benefited in their admission process. Even our bureaucracy has looked at these ‘charities’ who are earning crores of rupees every year in fees and who’s very existence develops, and ensures the gap between the divisions in our society. More surprisingly - the Government is doing something about it!

This year the government has produced the Draft National Policy on the Voluntary sector 2006. This draft policy redefines charities as those organisations that work for the public benefit and not for the benefit of the wealthy minority! It draws a distinction between public-utility organizations depending on fees, and public-benefit organizations depending on grants, It’s an attempt to restrict the scope for tax evasion and foster accountability in private schools and hospitals where fees are the predominant source of income.

In 2007, if all goes to plan, private schools will face a tax and legislative regime identical to businesses with similar incomes and will not be able to avail the charitable status, perks and accounting rules of true charities providing services to the genuinely needy. 

However, before we all celebrate more honesty and transparency in the business of schools we need to understand that those who have squirreled way multiple crores will not want their golden goose clipped, and will work to ensure the draft policy remain only a draft. Those of us on the side of honesty and accountability can only hope that the government keeps it’s nerve, and the draft policy is not just another of their “jam tomorrow” statements. Let us all pray that 2007 is a more honest and transparent year for schools, education, and governance.