Public Goods

Good can be categorized as three type:

Pure public good - Non-rival and non-excludable

Impure public good - Rival or excludable to some extent.

Private good - Rival ad excludable

Community Hall

Based on our observation, Kampung Perlis community hall is originally one of example of pure public good that found in this community engagement project. Our group (group 3) and group 4 together used this hall as a main venue for internal activities such as opening of the program and the lucky draw event. Basically, this hall has the characteristic of public goods because everyone can attend the activities organized in the hall for community event (non-excludable) and does not reduce the availability to others (non-rival).

However, everything changed when Covid-19 attacked since 2020.

Under the condition of pandemic Covid-19, this community hall become impure public good because one's involvement can be prevented (excludable) based on SOP phase 4 implemented by the government in Penang. Each participant must be screened before entering the hall. Therefore, only those with no symptoms were allowed to participate and those who have symptoms had been excluded to involved in our project. That means classification Kampung Perlis community hall as a public good is not an absolute, it depends on the situation.

The number of participants on this program had to be limited for indoor event in the hall. As the number of participant in a hall increases, the quota available for joining this project in the hall will be reduced to other community. A total of 34 people participated in this program, including 14 members of the Kampung Perlis community and 20 USM students. Therefore, we had to limit the number of students to 20 who were allowed to participate in this program even though the total number of students involved for both groups were almost 40.

Clean Village

The clean area that has been cleaned by our team can also be considered as a pure public good. That is the main objective of this program which is to provide a clean environment service by segregation waste. Therefore, there is no reasonable way to deprive everyone of this benefit. Everyone is able to see the cleaned area in Kampung Perlis without being prevented by anyone (non-excludable) and it is impossible to reduce availability of this scene/benefit to others (non-rival). Thus, it is hard to exclude anyone from the benefit from community services.

Lucky Draw

We also organized lucky draw activity for the Kampung Perlis community as part of our project. This lucky draw is only limited to the community who are registered to participate in this project (excludable). Those registered were numbered and randomly drawn by Assoc. Professor Dr. Saidatulakmal. It was an exciting moment when only 5 of 14 lucky people took home the prizes provided by CGSS (rival). Thus, we consider lucky draw have both private good characteristics.

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