Page 281 - James Caan - The Real Deal

28 · Back to School

‘I’ll give you an example of the problem,’ Muneer said. ‘We need
to employ a new security guard at the factory, but we need
someone who can read and write. They need to be able to sign for
deliveries and make sure visitors are given security badges and the
internal post gets delivered. Being a security guard is more of a job
than it used to be, but anyone who can read or write can earn good
money in the civil service. I cannot find anyone who is willing to
do the job.’
I thought about my father and wondered again how he had
managed to do what he had done without being able to read and
write. Times had changed: being illiterate now meant a life of
working for a pittance in the fields. I thought about the Indian
economy and how India is on track to becoming a global power.
The difference between India and Pakistan was education. Pakis-
tan has one of the worst illiteracy rates in the world. If Pakistan
couldn’t produce people capable of doing work in the modern
economy, then progress was just a dream. I felt I wanted to give
something to the country that had given me my start in life, and I
wondered what would happen to the village we were in if it had a
school. Imagine if kids were taught to read and write; imagine
what that would do for them, for their futures. Now imagine that
they were also taught English. It would completely transform their
prospects. Now consider what would happen if you taught girls,
too, because the fact is that girls are often kept at home. A decent
education could change the outlook for a girl in Pakistan. But it
wasn’t just the kids whose lives would be changed: imagine there
was a facility in the village with computers and playgrounds and
resources. Imagine the children going home and using their maths
lessons to help their parents balance the household budgets instead
of borrowing from loan sharks. I wouldn’t just be educating the
kids; the whole village would be changed. I was completely
enthused by the idea, and later that night I talked to my cousin
about it.

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