India Inc for PPP to better quality of education

Thursday, June 18, 2009

The education industry is looking at an increased public-private partnership (PPP) in educational and training initiatives for matching skill-set demands of the industry with the available talent. Education is among a few sectors that has been insulated from the impact of a global economic slowdown but faces a huge challenge of reducing the gap of educated yet unemployable talent.

“We would like to see more investment in PPP programmes to improve education quality at the bottom of the pyramid,” said Shantanu Prakash, chief executive officer and managing director, Educomp Solutions Ltd, a leading private player in the sector. “We would also like to see companies get fiscal incentives for investments made in education infrastructure projects.”

The country has a total of 219 million students of which 40 per cent are enrolled with private schools while about 142 million children are not in the school system. About 75,000 private schools account for only 7 per cent of the total institutions.

Source: Hindustan TImes (link opens in a new window)