India’s Human Capital and Educational Technology

If you think the U.S. has a drop out problem, India has the world’s largest population of children and 53% of children who start school drop out by 8th grade. The government plans to double annual education expenditures and remake the nation’s schools. A panel led by Dilip Thakore, Publisher and Editor, Education World, at the Milken Institute discussed India’s Human Capital: Educating the World’s Largest Population of Children, the opportunities to reform India’s education system both in terms of curricula and investment opportunities.

Some statistics to frame the topic:
450 million citizens under age 18
200 million children enroll in more than 1 million primary and upper primary schools
53% drop out before the eighth grade
35 million children complete secondary school
10 million enroll in post-secondary institutions
37 million children do not attend school at all

Anand Sudarshan, Managing Director and CEO, Manipal Education, a professional education group, noted that the desire for learning is there. “Individual aspiration quotient in India is extremely high,” said Sudarshan. Indian households devote a greater portion of their income to education than any other country. But the capacity and quality of public education is not there to meet the need.

Panelist Jeremy Williams, estimates that India will needs 2 million new teachers today and will be short 18 million teachers by 2015. The current training curriculum is 60 years old and the credentialing process is prohibitive. Williams believes the only answer is to harness technology and to “rethink what it means to be a school, a community learning center, not just for kids, but for the whole community…How? Public private partnerships as part of corporate social responsibility could put a satellite on the roof, get companies to donate old computers, beam in knowledge universe, a Smart Board, a young woman following instructions. Unless you rethink the problem, you get no where.” Williams is the Chief Academic Officer for Knowledge Universe and may be biased toward their content, however, the point is well taken. Without the capacity to qualify enough teachers to meet instructional capacity, leverage technology to bridge the divide, developing the teachers within the classroom to help more students along the way.

Another key topic was the education of girls. Grace Pinto, Managing Director, Ryan International Group of Institutions, a private organization that runs 250 schools insists that girls be educated. The literacy rate for women is just 47.8%. The schools hold courses in the evenings when girls can attend because they have completed their household duties. Many public schools lack facilities for girls and after a certain age, they no longer attend class. More than half of participants in Sudarshan’s distance education programs are women.

The panelists provided a fascinating view into a country as it rethinks access to education and how technology will play a role in raising the quality and capacity of learning. Technology and education will certainly have a disruptive and transformative role in India as these challenges are overcome.