As wicked as it gets
A case of illiteracy in India
Ahmedabad, 2014- A 12-years old Priyanka, was kept away from the community centre school by her parents due to reasons unknown. She used to be the sharpest and most active student of the class and so her absence worried all her mentors. Back then I was volunteering with an NGO working towards upliftment of the slums and educating the children of the community from where Priyanka belonged. Even though we tried hard we could not get in touch with her and her friends had not seen her for days. We decided to intervene and visit her parents. There she was cleaning utensils in front of her house while her drunkard father laid down, apathetic. We could see tears rolling down her eyes as soon as she saw us. She did not want to do the house chores. She wanted to study. She wanted to play with her friends and dolls. How could she get what she wanted, asked her eyes. Always getting the best possible resources in my lifetime never made me realize that liberty and equity are luxuries which cannot be afforded by everyone in this society. Absolutely flabbergasted, I stood there to encounter “a class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing”, defined as wicked problems by Rittel and Webber.
Every single problem mentioned by Rittel and Webber in their definition seemed to take shape to put together a scenario of intractable problems. The decision of not sending Priyanka to school anymore, as much as she wished to, can be traced to social issues of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment. In fact there is an interdependent vicious circle of events that seem to guide such problems. Unemployment occurs because of illiteracy which leads to poverty; or is it that because poverty leads to illiteracy and hence, unemployment. This seems to be a myriad puzzle which though you has en exit but is impossible to find. So, what is the outcome? Is it up to Priyanka to abjure education in order to provide some additional income until she can be married off to reduce the debts of the family? Or at least that is what the decision-making society suggests. Where and how can we intervene to solve such issues even though we know are the what aims we seek (Rittel & Webber).
The list of reasons was long and consequential but finding solutions for them was the same as finding the problem itself. Einstein famously said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” It is interesting that the more people, educators, researchers, students you ask, what is the problem in the society dealing with education? You are bound to get innumerable different opinions. But, when you ask the same people how to solve these, you will get a numerous different solutions. Such is the matrix of a wicked problem, the solution never exhausts at one proposal. In fact, with each proposal arrises a new question and so on. “The formulation of a wicked problem is the wicked problem!” There are no references that could be perused, since the problem is unique in its identity and location. Just when it seems that the puzzle is just a single move away to be solved, you are back to square one. That’s how I see a wicked problem.
So while looking at providing some solutions for Priyanka’s situation, we could not pin-point at correcting one particular issue. Every solution put forward a question in different direction. We had to dive deeper with every involved factor because there were so many stakeholders involved, each one with a different perspective and notion about the problem. It leaded us to a point where the we stopped look at these problems as issues, our perspective changed. Looking at the larger picture, it was clear that its not just about Priyanka but so many different lives are and will be affected by the consequences. I realized that the solution will not be right or wrong, just the best of the worst case scenario.
With this experience, I have a lot of unanswered questions in my mind- Where does the problem lie? How can it be fixed? Why is the system rigged? Who makes the final decisions? The only question that I have been able to understand is, “What is a wicked problem, after all?”
