Education System in India

India holds an important place in the global education industry. The country has more than 1.5 million schools with over 260 million students enrolled and about 751 universities and 35,539 colleges. India has one of the largest higher education systems in the world. Around 35.7 million students were enrolled in higher education in India during 2016-17. However, there is still a lot of potential for further development in the education system.

India has become the second largest market for e-learning after the US. The sector is currently pegged at US$ 2 billion and is expected to reach US$ 5.7 billion by 2020. The distance education market in India is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of around 11 per cent# during 2016-2020. Moreover, the aim of the government to raise its current gross enrolment ratio to 30 per cent by 2020 will also boost the growth of the distance education in India.

• India has 850 operational universities as of April 2018.
• With both the Government and the private sector stepping up to invest in the Indian education sector, the number of schools and colleges have seen an uptrend over the past few years
• Government’s initiative to increase awareness among all sections of the society has played a major role in promoting higher education among the youth.
• Total number of agricultural universities in the country increased from 35 in 1999 to 75 in 2017.

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• There has been a significant increase in the share of the state private universities as part of total universities from 3.43 per cent in 2008-09 to 34.82 per cent as of April 2018.
• As of April 2018, India has 384 state universities, 123 deemed to be universities, 47 central universities and 296 private universities

India’s education sector offers a great opportunity with approximately 29 per cent of India’s population being between the age group of 0-14 years. India’s higher education segment is is expected to increase to US$ 35.03 billion by 2025. The education sector in India is estimated at US$ 91.7 billion in FY18 and is expected to reach US$ 101.1 billion in FY19.

India has one of the largest networks of higher education institutions in the world with 850 universities (as of April 2018) and 42,047 colleges. A total of 35.7 million people were enrolled in higher education institutes in 2016-17. Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education reached 25.2 per cent in 2016-17.

The Central Government plans to disburse US$ 1 billion to states for introducing skill development initiatives. In November 2016, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship launched Pradhan Mantri YUVA Yojana, at a cost of US$ 74.68 million for providing entrepreneurship education and training to students in the country. In October 2017, in order to boost the Skill India mission, two new schemes, SANKALP and STRIVE were launched with an outlay of Rs 6,655 crore (US$ 1.02 billion). Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE) by 2022 was announced in union budget 2018-19 with an outlay of Rs 1 lakh crore (US$ 15.44 billion) for four years.

The Government of India has allowed 100 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the education sector through the automatic route since 2002.The sector has received cumulative FDI worth US$ 1.67 billion up to December 2017. Indian education sector witnessed 18 merger and acquisition deals worth US$ 49 million in 2017. The Government of India is working on the final draft of the New Education Policy to address the changing dynamics in the education industry of the country as per the requirement of the population. The draft of the New Education Policy is expected after June 2018.

                                                                                                                                                                                   -Rijul Yadav