For the Central and state governments, and the judiciary which abhors the “commercialisation of educationâ€, they are hate figures. Even the middle class which can’t do without their services and prefers to entrust the future — indeed the lives — of their precious children to them, has been brainwashed by the country’s confused socialist intelligentsia to believe they are exploitative. But your editor believes that India’s education entrepreneurs (aka edupreneurs), starting from the ancient gurus to Christian missionaries to latter day businessmen and women, are the unsung heroes of Indian education.
Reflect upon it. Without private education what would be the quality of the great Indian middle class? Could post-independence India’s governance and industrial infrastructure have been built by citizens equipped with government school and higher education? Certainly the English-speaking middle class which unites and governs — however imperfectly — this multi-ethnic and multi-lingual country would never have come into existence.
The plain reality which everybody prefers to ignore is that because of sustained government under-investment and neglect, the vast majority of India’s 1.30 million government schools defined by pathetic infrastructure, multi-grade teaching and chronic teacher absenteeism don’t provide any worthwhile education. This explains the steady flight of children from even the poorest bottom-of-the-pyramid households to the country’s 200,000 private schools which although a mere tenth of government schools, educate 40 percent of India’s children. And if you count the number of children enrolled by desperate parents in the country’s estimated 400,000 ‘unreco-gnised’ private budget schools which have mushroomed in urban slums and low-income habitations, it’s quite likely the majority of the country’s cruelly short-changed children are in private education, which it is pertinent to note is cheaper at all price points than anywhere else in the world.
The same is true of higher education. The overwhelming majority of India’s 33,000 colleges and 659 universities run by careless and corrupt state governments provide education and certification which is the despair of Indian industry. The 42 Central government universities and their affiliated colleges apart, the country’s youth are provided professional (engineering, medical, business management etc) education by an estimated 15,000 private colleges and 166 deemed (private) universities.
These are the reasons why on the commemorative occasion of the 14th anniversary of this publication, your editors have chosen to swim against the tide and broadcast and celebrate the contributions of 51 edupreneurs who ventured into the perilous waters of private education at approximately the same time when EducationWorld was launched (1999), with the mission to “build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item of the national agendaâ€.
I am certain the history, profiles and opinions of these education entrepreneurs driven by a combination of enlightened self-interest and altruism featured in this anniversary issue, will prove as inspiring to our readers as they did for me. I believe it’s high time society and the establishment sheds its irrational prejudice against “commercialisation of educationâ€, and accepts that provision of knowledge and learning is a legitimate business, profession and occupation serving the public interest.
