Education Industry Analysis

India’s education sector offers a great opportunity with approximately 29 per cent of India’s population in the age group of 0 to 14 years. India’s higher education segment is expected to increase to Rs 2,44,824 crore (US$ 35.03 billion) by 2025. India was ranked 34 among the 100 countries in English Proficiency Index 2019. Increasing internet penetration is expected to help in education delivery. As of September 2019, internet penetration in India reached 52.08 per cent.

India has over 250 million school going students, more than any other country. It also has one of the largest networks of higher education institutions in the world. Number of colleges and universities in India reached 39,931 and 993, respectively, in FY19. India had 37.4 million students enrolled in higher education in 2018-19. Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education reached 26.3 per cent in FY19.

The Central Government plans to disburse US$ 1 billion to states for introducing skill development initiatives. Skill India Mission 2015 is aimed at skilling 400 million Indian youths by 2022. As of January 2020, there were 14,602 Industrial Training Institutes in the India. Skill India program has benefitted more than one crore (10 million) youth annually. Under Union Budget 2019-20, the Government provided Rs 400 crore (US$ 57.23 billion) for ‘World Class Institutions’. 56 institutes were represented from India in the Times Higher Education (THE) Emerging Economies University Rankings 2020.

Education sector in India remains to be a strategic priority for the Government. The Government has allowed 100 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the education sector through the automatic route since 2002. The sector received cumulative FDI inflow worth US$ 3 billion until December 2019.

The Government is working on the draft of the New Education Policy to address the changing dynamics in the education industry of the country as per the requirement of its population. According to Mr Prakash Javadekar, Minister of Human Resource Development, Government of India, New National Education Policy draft is ready and would be given to the central Government. According to Union Budget 2020-21, the Government has allocated Rs 59,845 crore (US$ 8.56 billion) to the Department of School Education and Literacy. Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE) by 2022 was announced in Union Budget 2020-21 at an outlay of Rs 3,000 crore (US$ 429.55 million).

In May 2020, the Government launched PM eVIDYA, a programme for multi-mode access to digital/online education. Other initiatives to be launched include Manodarpan, New National Curriculum and Pedagogical framework, National Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Mission.