The prize for the best quote this week has to go to Government Chief Whip Bobby Hurreeram,  who – every time he opens his mouth – makes us look back with nostalgia to the good old days of Etienne Sinatambou. In a press conference, he looked journalists and pedagogues alike in the eye and wisdom flowed out of his brilliant mind: “Four credits for the School Certificate exams is not too much to ask. These days, kids can get any information they need in just a click.”

I wonder where this great secret had been hiding all these years. To pass exams, you only need a click and abracadabra! It’s like everything else we have seen with this government: An economic miracle is achieved… by a miracle. You throw Rs3.9 billion into digging for a sports centre that is swallowing more and more money without ever seeing the end of it, and we become a sports hub. Inject another Rs15 billion in spy cameras to constrain the freedoms of citizens and we become a safe country. Put another Rs18.8 billion plus the money for the sale of our financial sector into a tramway – an anaemic version of the Light Rail Transit System they campaigned so much against – and the country is modernised. And of course, spend Rs600 million on tertiary education and you have four employable graduates per family! Please copywrite this recipe!

I am not begrudging the youth of this country free tertiary education any more than I would deny them free primary and secondary education or free transport. In fact, I would honestly be very happy if we could afford to offer each pupil or student taking free public transport a cup of coffee and a choice between a continental and English breakfast as well, as they make their way to school or university. All I am asking is that we create the wealth we are splashing around and channel it in such a way that it targets those who need it most. Unfortunately, our wealth-generating exports are dwindling and we are living on unsustainable amounts of borrowed money and sold assets, all in order to finance our folie de grandeur instead of helping those genuinely in need.

Apart from being a vote-catching measure, it is clear that free tertiary education is not going to guarantee that we become an educated nation. Far from it. In a country where there are still children who are not schooled; where 20% of pupils do not even pass their Certificate of Primary Education; where School Certificate results are treated like a state secret because of how bad they are, can Hurreeram – aka Genius –  tell us how those who supposedly are being targeted by free tertiary education will overcome all these hurdles, have five credits at SC, pass the Higher School Certificate and benefit from free university education? Through ‘a click’?

When ignorant people think they know it all, it’s easy to overcome all the causes of failure at all levels. It’s easy to put an end to poverty. Give freebies. A lot of them. Make pensioners earn as much as those who are fully employed. Give money. More money. It will solve all the problems. And it’s quicker and much more visible than the painstaking exercise of channeling state resources to tackle the real causes of poverty, illiteracy and social exclusion, through wise and serious strategies that help people help themselves.

When rational views like these were expressed, Hurreeram, demagogically reacted by asking, “Is there an anti-poor people mafia lobbying so that children of the poor cannot succeed?” The answer is, “Yes, there is! And you may be part of it since the public money you are squandering will not benefit them!” But it might get you votes.

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