By Abishek Dubey
The Indian Education sector, is one of the largest sectors in the world, with the estimated market industry size to reach a whopping 570 crores by the year 2020. The segments of the education industry include pre-schooling, K-12 Schools and, Higher and Vocational Education. There are about 1.5 million schools and 700 universities around the country, but still, the rural areas lag behind in terms of education. In these severe times, we all need to accept the fact that the government is finding it challenging to cope with the current situation of education in the country. Difficulty in generating financial aids, increasing rates of students dropping from schools, constant character of Indian classrooms are some concern raising issues. Such circumstances require us all to pull together so that children in some of India’s most desperate communities and areas have the chance to go to school and make an independent living. This is where the contribution of the business sector comes into play with immense importance.
Investing for business is always a challenging task, with the limitation of no surety of a good return on investment. But with proper research and planning, it can be decided which industry is best for investment.
Well, the education sector is one of the best investment arenas in the country. This industry is still in the development process and has an extensive requirement of emerging innovative startups, with the assurance of great and fruitful scope in it. If one considers the opportunity to invest in online and distance education, the market size is probably among the top 5 industries in India. Investing in children’s increased attendance at schools and learning is not that difficult to maintain. With devoted contributions to enhancing teaching and methodologies to can contribute meaningfully to the economic advancement of society.
There are various reasons and ways, for entrepreneurs to invest in the education industry, to ultimately yield them a high return and also significantly bring a change in the current austere scenario of education in the country.
Firstly, the government is working rigorously to highly invest in the school education sector. The alarming drop rates of children from schools, especially in the rural sector, is the main reason why it is very important to focus on improving the conditions of schools all around. The failure of schools to completely accept children from rural areas, and also the helplessness of the rural kids to cope up with the other children, leads them to drop off schools, without even completing their basic education. To resolve this situation, the need of the hour is to create a much safer and comfortable space for these children. The new initiatives and investments by the government open up huge opportunities for big companies and startups to bring about a huge transformation.
The most attractive domain in the education industry is the pre-school and school segment, where the suddenly increased inclination of parents, to send their children to international schools, is opening up new doors for edu-preneurs. Various initiatives by CBSE, and the heightened hype created by the media gives a lot of opportunities to businesses.
Over the last century, the world has seen a lot of technological advancement in the education field. But the Indian education still sought to age-old methodologies of teaching. Digitization the technical space have widened around, and it is high time to bring technology to bring to our classrooms as well. It is very crucial to give students the required technical exposure and make them tech-friendly. Businesses can invest in bringing their innovations and expertise to make our classrooms more advanced.
The Education sector is not limited to classrooms only. It also covers a whole big scope for the provision of side services as well like, advertising, marketing, Public Relations and Digital Marketing for the educational institutions. And this might be a plus factor for the interested investors.
Where in our culture, education has always been considered as a charitable and noble cause, and though it is not business, education should be run like one, to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the program. And if the investors are committed enough, they are sure-shot to have an excellent return rate in the long run.
To enhance the quality of teaching, create technically sound classrooms, ensure ways and strategies to retain kids from dropping off schools, all these factors that make our Indian education sector lag behind, can be used by emerging businesses to bring improvement, expecting a good return on investment, alongside. With the collaborations of business leaders and education superintendents, it can be anticipated that this will pave a path for modernization and betterment of the Indian Education system.
(Author: Abishek Dubey, CEO and Founder, Muskaan Dreams)
