How edupreneurs can help India meet global education standards

With the current pace of education spending and factors like shortage of quality teachers, India will take a whopping 126 years to reach standards of education at par with developed nations, according to a report by ASSOCHAM.

India spends a mere 3.83 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on education which is insufficient to catch up with developed economies, thus implying that if the change in education system is not dramatic, it’ll take us six generations to catch up with developed countries. In contrast, the US spends 5.22 per cent of its GDP on education, Germany spends 4.95 per cent while for UK it is 5.72 per cent.

Noting that India has resource constraints, to reach the levels of spending as recommended by the United Nations, requires our country to spend at least 6 per cent of its GDP on education. Moreover, shortage of quality teachers is among the major challenges facing the education sector. At present, the shortage of teachers has been measured at 1.4 million.

Besides, 20 per cent of the teachers do not measure up to the standards of the National Council for Teachers’ Education (NCTE). Also, due to absence of focus on effective skill development, India is one of the least skilled countries.

Tapping these obstacles and assisting India reach global standards in terms of education, many education entrepreneurs are coming up with startups which are unique and help bridge the yawning gap between the education standards of India and other developed countries.

According to Gaurav Mehra, Partner, Kaizen Management Advisors Private Limited, “For India to aspire to global education standards, it's essential to solve the following most basic problems at scale:

• Sufficient numbers of well-trained, capable, motivated teachers
• Consistent, effective content available in all languages
• Effective assessment and personalised motivation for every learner
• Reasonable infrastructure
• Access to enough funding (personal finances, govt. funds, student loans) to ensure quality of all of the above

He further added that, “Edupreneurs have the opportunity to help find solutions to every one of these problems. Uber and Ola created an infinite supply of drivers, Virtual Class technologies have collapsed geography, the world’s best content is available online and often, nearly free. Movie clips are distributed via MMS and SIMs to every corner. Payday loans and EMIs for buying anything are easily available. We have the tech and the business model analogies needed. We just need edupreneurs to find the right combination of carefully thought-through technical, pedagogical, business model and financial innovation that delivers a clear outcome. Do this and you will impact a billion lives."

Provision of free WiFi and other technology also adds-on in making education accessible easily. Government has also come up with a course in teacher training to have the teaching facility at par with global faculty.

According to Harman Singh, Founder & CEO, WizIQ, “Edupreneurs can help India reach global education standards by following the points below:

First, edupreneurs can use the latest technologies and best practices to teach without having to go through any bureaucracy of the government or of colleges. They can use internet enabled platforms like WizIQ to set up their own academies and use the same tools that instructors in the developed countries use. They can deliver their teaching services through modern methodologies like live online instruction, MOOCs and flipped classrooms.

Secondly, access of learning through the internet enables edupreneurs to have themselves rate by students at an international level. E.g. if they teach courses on topics that are also taught by instructors in the US and other developed countries, the students can rate their courses along with rest of the instructors' courses. This way, there is a level playing field on the quality of courses.”

Thus, given proper facilities and investments, Indian edupreneurs can help raise the education quality and remove hurdles causing stagnancy. These entrepreneurs with their international experience and government contributing towards them can bring in development and hence reduce the number of years for India to reach global education standards.