Can innovative technologies, strong will power transform primary education system?

MUMBAI, India - Nov. 28, 2014 - PRLog -- In terms of sustainable growth, a key driver for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" campaign would be the ability of businesses to have their goods 'sold in India'. A consumer market of global standards will demand quality goods, and inspire entrepreneurs to capitalise on 'buyer-need' driven opportunities, and create wealth. With India's growth story is becoming one of the most anticipated (and much needed!) global economic catalysts, driving this growth and developing a consumer market relies fundamentally on having an educated and skilled workforce.

However, a large proportion of India's population across semi-urban and rural areas continues to have low purchasing power, and largely continues to make a living through agriculture. The World Bank reports that almost 47 per cent of India's employed population is engaged in agriculture, and yet the sector only contributes to about 14 per cent of the country GDP. The gap is staggering!

While skill development, as discussed in a recent Business Today article, remains one of our biggest challenges, the root of this imbalance lies in the low quality and efficacy of primary education.

Diversity of Challenges

The poor learning outcomes are a result of a wide variety of challenges. Infrastructural and human capital barriers ranging from low-teacher motivations to linguistic diversity to the bureaucratic administrative systems are adversely impacting progress.

Let's look at some of these challenges closely:

a. Improving access to education, but not quality: The Annual Status of Education Report points to positive statistics, including a steady increase in private school enrolment from 18.7 per cent in 2006 to 29 per cent in 2013; and the proportion of schools complying with the Right to Education's pupil-teacher ratio norms increasing by nearly seven per cent in the past three years. But a closer look helps get a deeper understanding. Only about half of the Standard V children can read a Standard II level text. In arithmetic, a significant share of the children is lagging several years behind where they are expected to be. From an economic standpoint, this translates to unemployable workforce and productivity deficit.

b. Probably, an overworked primary school teachers: Primary school teachers employed by the government, particularly in rural India, are required to perform a wide range of duties completely unrelated to imparting education. These duties, including administering government programmes such as immunisation clinics, assisting with data collection for the national census, and staffing polling stations during elections, in addition to their teaching responsibilities, place significant demands on teachers' time.

c. Bureaucratic administrative system making implementation difficult: It is difficult to test new practices on a small scale before rolling them out. If a new programme has been developed, it becomes evident that every school must have it. Such indiscriminate application often means that teachers are implementing programmes without understanding their key principles and ultimate goals.

So, can entrepreneurs help create a more productive ecosystem? Another barrier adversely impacting the quality of primary education appears to be low levels of teacher motivation. The usual culprit, compensation, does not seem to be problem. The starting salary range for a government primary school teacher is between Rs16,000 and Rs 22,000 per month, depending on the state, with additional benefits of public healthcare and retirement pensions.

A number of entrepreneurs have started realising the immense potential in the primary education system in India and as a result, we have a few innovative products and services:

a. Teachers as business owners: Andhra Pradesh-based Sudiksha, aims to address this challenge by developing teachers as 'business owners'. The organisation employs a grassroot entrepreneurship model by training young women within the society to run the schools as an enterprise. Although it is a pre-school centre, the programme helps develop schools focusing on the low-income urban and semi-urban regions, managed by entrepreneurs from within the community. Most children's parents are daily wage labour or work in small businesses. Sudiksha has grown from six schools in 2011 to 25 schools by mid-2013, and has raised funding from Pearson Affordable Learning Fund.

b. Social enterprise enabling learning through peer instructions and group learning: Motivation apart, experts point to lack of qualifications on the part of the teachers, and the lack of support system, to be another major contributor to poor outcomes. This problem is often compounded by flawed teaching techniques.

Avanti, a hybrid social enterprise, aims to tackle this by enabling students to learn through peer instructions and group learning, rather than the traditional teacher-centric delivery. Volunteers from top engineering schools spend two to three hours a week to mentor the students. The organisation focuses on high potential low-income students, and operates five centres in the metro/big cities- Mumbai, Delhi and Kanpur. As a conscious effort to create access for the poorer section of society, students are eligible only if their family has an average annual income of less than Rs 2,50,000. As a fee, the students pay about a sixth of the available alternatives.

c. Using technology to provide accessible learning: Organisations are also leveraging technology, to reduce the onus on the teachers and provide accessible learning. K-Yan, developed by IL&FS Education in collaboration with IIT Bombay, is an integrated community computer that folds in a projector and a foldable screen. With built in webcam and Internet connectivity, this device makes a classroom portable, and opens up opportunities for community learning and anytime study. Taking the classrooms to the children in open fields and grounds, can dramatically improve interactivity and reduce absenteeism.

K-Yan can also be powered by inverters or a car battery, which is critical considering only about half of primary schools have access to electricity in India.

d. Content digitisation for an immersive learning experience: Another big trend in primary education is the digitisation of educational content to enable learning experiences beyond classrooms, at the student's reach. Harvard professor Clayton Christensen had argued that half of K-12 education will be online by 2019.


(Sanjeev Jha is a Partner at <a href="www.invyramid.com">InvYramid Innovation Strategy Consulting</a>. Previously, Sanjeev founded <a href="www.priority.org.in">Priority Research</a> and <a href="www.30rupees.com">30rupees.com</a>. In his fortnightly online column for Business Today, Jha focuses on business model innovation, business strategy, consumer insights, and entrepreneurship. )

Follow @sanjeev__jha or e-mail: sanjeev_jha@invyramid.com