“Government should spend efficiently”

Karan Khemka is the Mumbai-based partner of Parthenon Group, which bills itself as the world’s largest education consultancy firm with projects/clients in 60 countries.

The finance minister has taken credit for raising the education outlay of the Central government by 24 percent over last year.  How satisfied are you with this provision?
Though the education outlay of the Central government has been raised by 24 percent, it’s still less than 1 percent of the country’s GDP. Clearly, that is not suffi-cient. Apart from that, it’s not just the quantity but also the quality of expen-diture that counts. Even if the government were to triple its expenditure, if that money is spent on the same dysfunctional progra-mmes, it will be useless. Instead, the government should spend efficiently, working in conjunction with private companies who are able to achieve better results with less funds.

As Pratham’s ASER 2010 survey indicates, learning outcomes in government K-12 schools are deteriorating. Is there any encourage-ment for private initiatives in Indian education?
Private schools deliver better results because they are held accountable by their stakeholders — students and their parents. It’s well-known that private school students score higher in CBSE exams than public school students.

How optimistic are you about the future of Indian education and about the country being able to harvest its so-called demographic dividend? 
The Parthenon Group continues to be opti-mistic about the Indian education system. The main reason is that private entrepreneurs are finding ways to promote private schools, colleges and universities within the existing legal system. They have created more than 1.1 million seats in higher education each year during the past three years. Even though the government refuses to make regulation less rigid, stakehol-ders seem to have found ways and structures to build schools and institutions. Critics say these struct-ures might not be sustainable, or that there should be no place for profit in the education sector, but in the end, capacity was created where and when it was needed and more children were provided access to education.