Storm in a teacup

A version of this article was published in Dawn on May 8, 2011

I never read ‘Three cups of tea’. Something about its ‘white man stumbles upon brown misery, then sets about correcting it using his all-American heartland gusto, saving one drowning soul at a time’ narrative did not sit well with me. I also found that the optimism generated by the near universal fawning over Mr. Mortenson (the author of Three cups of tea) grated with my pessimism about our education system. I believe, for example, that universal primary school enrollment in Pakistan cannot be achieved within my lifetime (current calculations place my end date somewhere in mid 2049).

I am tired of educators who, explicitly or implicitly, participate in projecting the idea that we can escape the laws of geography, demographics, economics, culture and politics that define and constrain our education system; if only we had a good heart and the will to act (This is the same for any education system, which makes the nauseatingly feted Waiting for superman documentary in the US equally annoying). Needless to say I am experiencing a certain degree of schadenfreude after the recent allegations leveled by 60 Minutes (an investigative program on the American network, CBS) and an online essay by Jon Krakauer at the veracity of claims in Mr. Mortenson’s books and the financial handling of his charity organization, the Central Asia Institute (CAI).

The allegations of wrongdoing can be bunched into two broad sets. The first set alleges that a number of claims included in Mr. Mortenson’s (and his co-author, David Oliver Relin) books, Three cups of tea and Stones into schools, are inaccurate in both their substance and their timeline. The second set alleges that there has been some financial misconduct at the charity institute which he established on the back of the success of his first book (Mr. Krakauer was one of the institute’s benefactors, but stopped donating in 2004).

Predictably, some of the reaction to these allegations has been as exaggerated and over-the-top as the initial acclaim and praise. An analysis of the alleged inaccuracies in the books suggests that the authors contracted timelines in some places and exaggerated events in others to create a more fluent and punchy narrative. Some of the events – like his kidnapping at the hands of some local Taliban – appear to be entirely made up. This, in itself, represents a failure of the public trust, but it would not be the first time it has happened. Senator Hilary Clinton claimed during the 2008 presidential campaign that she had stepped off a helicopter in Bosnia in the 1990’s under a hail of bullets; a claim later resoundingly repudiated. She still became the Secretary of State of her country. How many of us have embellished the facts of our stories when retelling them in order to make them more interesting, funnier or more action filled? I have. It has, as yet, not been proven that the overall arc of Mr. Mortenson’s story is entirely inaccurate. And it does not take away from the efforts of his organization, CAI.

There is still the matter of the alleged financial misconduct at CAI, mainly to do with use of the charity’s funds to purchase copies of Three cups of tea. While this action is aimed at distributing the book (a major source of fundraising) to prospective donors, the authors benefit from the royalties that these additional sales generate. This may mean that the co-authors are profiting from some part of the charitable donations CAI collects. Whether these allegations are proven to be true and are found to be illegal is yet to be determined. The attorney general of Mr. Mortenson’s home state of Montana (where CAI is also based) has announced an inquiry into the finances of the charity. I choose to reserve judgment until the investigations are completed.

True or not, the damage to Mr. Mortenson and CAI may already have been done. International charity is a business where reputation and perceptions of integrity may be the difference between millions of dollars and dying a slow painful death. A funding crisis for CAI could be fatal for the 170 odd schools that it is supposed to be running along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border (I will not go into whether these schools exist or don’t exist; let’s assume, for the moment, that they do).

My problem with the Mortensons of the world is not that they bend the truth to achieve their goal. My problem with them is twofold.  The first is the lack of sustainability. We will learn over the next few weeks and months whether CAI’s schools and other programs are sustainable from a funding perspective. As donations dry up – which they might do – will the schools keep running? Or will we return to a status quo ante? If the latter occurs, will this exercise have been worthwhile? Could the millions of dollars spent so far have been invested on something that would have survived a precipitous decline in funding?

My second problem is the ‘scalability’ of the effort. By which I mean to ask, can CAI’s efforts in education on our northwestern borders be replicated province-wide (in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) or nation-wide? A back of the envelope calculation suggests this might be difficult. CAI spent $3.95 million on education in 2009 (according to their financial statements). The website states that they have ‘educated’ (whatever that means) 68,000 children until 2010. Since they do not say how many students were enrolled in a given year let’s assume there were 68,000 children in 2009 (this has the effect of making CAI’s spending look cheaper than it actually would be).

Their expenditure per student would come out to be approximately $58 per year. This may not seem like a lot to a donor, but if we were to provide the same education to all Pakistani primary school going age children (19 million according to UNICEF) we would need (19,000,000 x 58 = 1,102,000,000) $1.1 billion to educate them for one year. That is approximately Rs. 90 billion per year. We are in no position, therefore, to educate our children in the manner in which CAI educates children. All this before we even know whether these schools have actually improved literacy or numeracy and reduced dropout rates, etc.

The rise of Mr. Mortenson and his cause was a feel-good story that had no bearing on Pakistan’s wider educational problems. If his efforts fall and disappear due to his misdemeanors they will represent a drop in the ocean, ripples of which will have been barely felt.