India's growth depends on its ability to significantly revamp its dismal education sector, which suffers from problems of outreach and quality. A recent study shows that the public education sector may be beyond saving.

A possible solution comes in the form of sustainable investments in a vast network of private schools delivering standardized, high quality education at an affordable price to the low income mass market (base of the pyramid) customer.The investments in schools would take the form of financial resources, organizational support and value-added services to help these schools become efficient and effective educational institutions.

Harnessing India's Human Capital Through Educational Opportunities, published in the MIT International Review, presents one possible solution. (Full disclosure - I am one of the paper's co-authors.)

Read the paper at http://web.mit.edu/mitir/2008/spring/harnessing.pdf

(Photo by McKay Savage, used under Creative Commons License.)