2008 June | The Abridged Ajani

Causalities and Externalities: Community Involvement Projects

Ajani Mgo | 19 June 2008 | 2:09 pm

In Singapore, there exists this little program in schools called the Community Involvement Project (CIP) scheme - concerning the amount of time and effort put into charity; grassroots and community work etc. for a student. In the past, CIP was a requirement: usually a student had to accomplish 6 hours of CIP in a year before he was let off by his teachers. Recent reforms have made this obsolete: “CIP hours” are no more and CIP is now strictly-voluntary. Qualitative, rather than quantitative CIP activities are that which is being emphasized now. Despite its guise, CIP remains to be very-much a “recommended” thing-to-do by schools, as achievements in it may be reflected in a testimonial for better employability and perhaps occasionally in an indirect sense, a better shot at university entrance.

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Now, I have some reservations still about this scheme, before and after reforms - officially in-theory CIP is much-better now, but in-practice… I reserve my comment.

A few weeks ago I was approached by some other students to interview me about my opinion about the CIP scheme, the former whom identified themselves as doing this for a project. I guess I said a bunch of easily-misquotable phrases and all, but I was honestly giving them my personal opinion, even as it was completely politically-incorrect. Now I wish I had the actual transcript of the conversation but I do not, thus I will just rely on a potentially-fallible memory then.

I recall telling them that perhaps ‘they should scrap it (the CIP scheme)’. Immediately I was rebutted by this interviewer who obviously shared a very-different opinion from me. In an urgent tone he queried me. “But don’t you think that the CIP program has made you more aware of such issues and developed you into a better person etc. etc.” Something like this he said.

Okay, at this moment I thought I knew what was going on - I immediately sought to recorrect his idea of my perspective. To express what I told him in about twenty sentences into a few lines, this was the gist of what I said:

Oh alright, I think I know where you are heading. This is my view:

PREMISE: I am already aware of these issues; I am already-considerate; I am already a “better person”. (something like this declaration ought be be frowned upon in any other case, but I think I needed to make my point)

CONCLUSION: THEREFORE I do CIP to continue what I have.

This is your perspective:

PREMISE: I am not already-aware of these issues; I am not yet so-considerate; I can still be a “better person”.

CONCLUSION: THEREFORE I do CIP to accomplish what I have not.

It took a while before all the interviewers got my causality exposition. In fact, I had modified my actual premise before verbally-expressing it for better understanding, at the risk of myself sounding so arrogant. After they had understood my perspective a little better, I then introduced them to my real premise: that it was neither an issue or anti-issue for me to do CIP or not, it was just a non-issue. You want to do it? Fine. You don’t want to do it? Okay. You want to make those who don’t want to do it do it? No! You don’t want those who want to do it not do it? No! If you can catch what I mean by “non-issue”, I think you got my gist. I am not committing a special pleading fallacy when I told the interviewer that I “do CIP the conventional way”.

CIP does give us an avenue to continue/practice/put into action/commit/do (replace with a semantically-correct word of your choice) what we have already learnt or understood. The official stance of CIP by the Ministry, though, looks at it as that CIP gives us an avenue to learn/understand (replace with a semantically-correct word of your choice) what we have not-already continued/practiced/put into action/committed/done. Nothing wrong with that - just that the causality… Okay, fine.

I have found a new justification for the Ministry’s stance using economic concepts - this deals with the phenomena of positive externalities and market failure. Hmm, I’m not talking crap here - Freakonomics has taught one that economic concepts are beyond mere monetary markets and purchasing power. My stance on CIP actually works only in an ideal society. In a realistic society though, because of the nature of CIP itself being an activity with “spillover benefits” not just to the CIP doer himself; or perhaps even if I were to say that there are no benefits to the doer, the social benefit of CIP far outweighs the private cost of the doer. Hence, it is a “positive externality” in the sense that more people should enjoy the benefits of CIP, and where its supply is insufficient to meet the demand, legislation, in this context “recommendations” have to be put forward to encourage the provision of the CIP good hence. Therefore CIP should stay in all its guises - but this justification would work too for the pre-reforms CIP.

It is therefore a balance between causalities and externalities. I am not making a straw man fallacy here, rather a suggestion to what can work as a potential knowledge-based argument. I personally lean towards the non-issuification of CIP though: Hear, there shalst be no recommendations for CIP! I will not discount the fact that it is possible to learn from CIP too, in a “service learning” fashion - but my main issue? Have everyone learn from CIP to accomplish the causality, or just make it a non-issue and forget about externalities and all.

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