Affirmative action, the only solution

THE EDITOR: The call for affirmative action, is a hot issue these days. I will support any affirmative action programme that enables people from all backgrounds to compete effectively for better paying job. The best way to level the field, is to improve education for the young - which would maximise human capital. One section of our society is scared and unduly opposed to policies which impose quotas and set asides. Yet those same people remain committed to civil rights legislation that reduces discrimination against minorities in schooling, training and employment. Even effective anti-discrimination laws cannot do much to address the main cause of unequal opportunities among adults: differences in childhood experiences. ome children, many of them not from minority groups, grow up in unstable families and vicious neighbourhoods and receive low quality education and training.

The right kind of affirmative-action programmes would raise their human capital so that they would gain the skills needed to compete. Many types of human capital investment would help such children to do well as adults. For example, kids from poor families should be given tuition vouchers that they can use to do get a decent education, rather than to attend inadequate local public schools. The welfare system should be reformed in ways that keep poor families in tact. The crackdown on crime should continue since it will eventually convince children growing up in slum neighbourhoods that crime does not pay. Programmes that provide good diets and medical care for disadvantaged children which have large payoffs in the long run, should be strengthened rather than weakened.

To be effective, programmes for the disadvantaged must begin when children are very young since their handicaps worsen with age. Public training and other programmes for unemployed adults often have little effect. They cannot offset the cumulative impact of bad habits and inferior schooling. Even the best affirmative-action schemes do not bring unprepared minorities up to do the level of the students and workers who gain their positions on merit alone. In light of the foregoing, improving the opportunities of the minority and other children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds calls for affirmative action, the only solution. Always remember that one should not be selected purely on merit. Mediocre people were also entitled to do a little representation.

W CRAIGWELL
Valsayn