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 December 2019, internet penetration in India reached 54.29 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 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. Total FDI inflow in India’s education sector stood at US$ 3.24 billion between April 2000 to March 2020 according to the data released by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). Venture capital in ed-tech space increased to US$ 795 million in the first six months of 2020 from US$ 108 million in the corresponding period last year.

The Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi approved the National Education Policy 2020, making way for large scale, transformational reforms in both school and higher education sectors. The policy is built on foundational pillars of Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability and Accountability, and is aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 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.

In June 2020, Minister for Education, Mr Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank' virtually launched World’s first ever online Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree in Programming and Data Science, prepared and offered by the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-Madras).