Somebody noted that bribery, which he extended to corruption, started when we were kids. Our parents would often “bribe” us with a toy, money or something of value to us, for us to do something. Clean our room or the house, for instance. Or perhaps to study well in school.
There is a controversial privately-funded school program in the United States, referred to as cash-for-kids. Under this scheme, kids receive cash incentives for getting good grades in school. “The higher the kids score on tests, the more they get paid: up to a maximum of $50 per test for seventh-graders and up to $25 for fourth-graders,” as reported in the New York Post. The initial results are encouraging, showing a better performance among the covered kids.
The critics of this program say it distorts the essence of education. Children should love learning for learning’s sake, and not for some financial consideration.
There are persuasive arguments for each side, to be sure. I could not generalize and could only speak for myself.
Back when the world was young, when cellphones and the internet were still figments of sci-fi imagination, I would strive to get as many perfect scores each week. Back then, in grade or elementary school, we would blindly sing the Bagong Lipunan song in class programs and greedily munch on nutri-bun, part of the government’s supplemental feeding program in public schools. There was no chance of delaying the start of classes because of some disease which kids love to share with one another — sore eyes, measles, chicken pox. (Maybe it would have been different if swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, was already existent and identified. Even viruses were much more gentle back then.)
Anyway, on weekends, I would gather my test papers with perfect scores and proudly hand them to my parents. They would, of course, beam with pride and satisfaction. But pleasing them was farthest from my mind. I was more interested in the agreed trade-off, 10 cents for every paper with a perfect score (10 cents, try to imagine what year that was). I don’t know if this contributed to the fact that, with all modesty, I turned out to be the class valedictorian (yeah, the one-eyed kid in the kingdom of the blind).
Again, I could only speak for myself. Let’s hear what you have to say.
