Friday, June 26, 2009

Education sector Update

To boost its presence in the Indian education sector, Pearson, a Britain-headquartered education and information company is investing $30 million in Indian education resource provider Educomp Solutions and Bangalore-based online tutorial firm TutorVista.Pearson will acquire 50 percent stake in Educomp Solutions for $17.5 million as part of their agreement signed Wednesday. The unit will then be converted into a 50-50 joint venture.

'The focus of the government is not just employment but employability, so there will be a lot of focus on skill-based knowledge,' Vivek Govil, president and chief executive of Pearson Education

The Indian government spends $30 billion a year on the education sector, while Indian consumers spend $50 billion a year on private educational institutions and services, so it makes a huge business proposition

TutorVista has already received funding from Manipal Educational and Medical Group and private equity fund LightSpeed Venture Partners

2 comments:

Kaushambi said...

Few things that Indian government is looking forward in education sector at the present scenario are as follows:

1. Increasing the quality of education in Indian schools to raise up the standard of Indian education at par with that of the global education. Global education emphasizes on technical education rather than just preliminary education.Hence, special emphasis is on industry ready professionals.Improving quality of education would mean having a good standard of trained teachers in place along with a good infrastructure in place which can be ensured by optimum utilisation of additional funds being allocated for the same.

2. Successful completion of increasing number of higher educational institutes in India would increase the number of students having higher education which will increase the market size of Indian education market.

3. Increasing literacy in the past years shows an improvement in the primary education market in India. That doesnot imply much improvement if we take into consideration the rate of drop outs at upper primary level.The number of primary education schools are being increased but there is a lack of adequately trained teachers and infrastructure.

3. The high percentage of private schools in India and an increasing number of enrolment in the same means a high acceptability of the same by public. PPP is in a prominent growth phase in every sector of India and hence Education sector should be no exception. PPP would ensure high standard of education in the country.

Kaushambi said...

The reason why International Companies like Pearson are entering the Indian education sector is:

India has a huge untapped market and hence has huge scalability.

We can see a lot of international exposure to Indian education sector by having proper regulations in place for foreign universities to enter the Indian market. Stanford University and Oxford University have shown interest in setting up campuses in India and hence this matter should be looked into very carefully and act upon it immediately.

If these matters are taken care of then we can stop high percentage of high potential students to go out from India for pursuing their desired career training.