NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - Indian Education: Missing Markets, New Opportunities - Comments

The 2$ school

Nandini — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 05:40:29 -0500

Thank you for your interesting post. I was fascinated by the idea of the 2$ branded school, as I am working on a very similar project. Any idea what happened to the spark project? When I followed the link, i was disappointed to know that the initiative had been disbanded.

Vivekananda's faith is in such of this Youth.

saibabu — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 06:12:07 -0400

'Swami Vivekananda's dream on education in India' comes true through such of these brilliant sparks as they have strong foundation to make it so.

education

shailesh — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:22:16 -0400

Its a marvelous comment given on education by nitin....and i can also see private sector is serving education more efficiently and in better way

Maybe Absence of "Education Choice" is not the problem

Kristol — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 23:34:27 -0400

It is certainly promising to see concerted efforts to provide education to India's neediest. However, India's poor children need more than a choice of which school to attend. They and their families need to understand the importance of education in creating a better future for themselves and India. Many children enable their family's daily survival by earning income. We can empower the children by making it clear that the opportunity cost (an education) of children working is extremely high. It is then that the availability of options and high quality education will be indispensible.

Indian Education: Missing Markets, New Opportunities

Nitin Rao — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 06:29:53 -0400

The role of the private sector in promoting education is a topic of considerable interest and discussion.

Atanu Dey's series of blog posts on The Indian Education System make for good reading.

An extract:

"Imagine for a bit what it would be like if education were provided by private sector firms. Can it be done? Would a socially optimal amount, variety, and quality of education be provided? Would there be market failures? If so, how can those market failures be corrected? Can one devise mechanisms to correct those failures?

The answer to whether the private sector can provide education is clearly ‘yes’ because around the world for a very long time private firms have provided education very successfully. Both private sector for-profit and not-for-profit business models exist. Education, at some level of description, is a service like any of a very large variety of goods and services provided very efficiently by the market. The generalization that markets work holds quite meaningfully in the specific case of education broadly."

The education sector - once seen as the exclusive obligation of the government and NGOs - now presents opportunities for research and
private investment.

For instance, The Spark Group (Full disclosure: I have been supporting Spark), founded by entrepreneurs from MIT, is creating a branded chain of $2 schools across India (Spark School-in-a-Box). The schools will be owned and operated by private entrepreneurs. Spark hopes to maximize outcomes of the initiative by harnessing the power of grassroots entrepreneurship. The model will be to provide a plug-and-play package that comes with everything required to start and run a low-end school - from curriculum to fee schedule to infrastructure design. The plan is to take the entrepreneur from "ink on the contract" to "chalk on the board" in 100 days flat. This chain of schools will be adapted for local needs - and yet be integrated under one brand that will be instantly recognized by every poor family in India. Backed by rigorous academic research from Harvard and MIT, Spark plans to make sustainable investments in schools by providing much-needed resources and value-added services.

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