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. However, there is still a lot of potential for further development in the education system.
At the same time, the growth of the Indian economy and upward movement of income levels is boosting spend on Education,
Market Size
The education sector in India is poised to witness major growth in the years to come as India will have world’s largest tertiary-age population and second largest graduate talent pipeline globally by the end of 2020. The education market in India is currently valued at US$ 100 billion and is expected to nearly double to US$ 180 billion by 2020.* Currently, the school segment is valued at US$ 52 billion and contributes 52 per cent to the education market in India, higher education contributes 15 per cent of the market size, text-book, e-learning and allied services contribute 28 per cent and vocational education in manufacturing and services contributes 5 per cent. Higher education system in India has undergone rapid expansion. Currently, India’s higher education system is the largest in the world enrolling over 70 million students while in less than two decades, India has managed to create additional capacity for over 40 million students. It witnesses spending of over Rs 46,200 crore (US$ 6.93 billion).
The sector has its own characteristics that one must consider while developing a strategy. Here are some important points to consider:
Lengthy Sales cycles – The Schools Sector is highly fragmented. There has been no consolidation in the sector, and this is also unlikely in the near future, due to regulations that make it difficult for corporates to enter and for existing leaders to access large sums of capital. As a result, winning market share is a slow process that requires addition of customers school-by-school and city-by-city. You should expect and plan for lengthy sales cycles and relatively higher sales costs. An additional complexity is that there are numerous decision makers, and it is difficult to sometimes identify the correct decision maker. As an example, many schools are governed by trusts comprising of numerous members, who are difficult to access. Some schools require that new educational products be also approved by the PTA committee, presenting an additional hurdle and delay in the sales cycle. So do ensure that you have thought through your sales costs and planned to hire the right kind of salespeople who can navigate a difficult sales environment.
Teacher Lifecycle Management: Some schools suffer in recruiting, training, retaining and motivating their pool of teachers. Parents are very sensitive to this aspect, and high teacher attrition is inevitably followed by high student attrition. Surely, there are opportunities to exploit here.
Curriculum development and Management: Numerous schools struggle in this area. They are simply unable to develop a well-rounded, forward thinking curriculum framework that underpins the academic development of its students. Teachers walk into class without lesson-plans, classes are taught without learning objectives in mind, and there is no thought given to making subjects more interesting, or assessing and supporting the non-academic development needs of students. There are several players in this sector, but the market continues to be fragmented and under-served.
Conclusion
The education system is going through a major change with digital technology affecting all aspects of the education system. Educational institutions; irrespective of their size or segment-big, small, public, private, K-12, primary, secondary, and graduate-are embracing this change with gusto. As a result, learning and technology now go hand in hand, and all segments of learners are using digital technologies such as social, mobile, and cloud to meet academic needs.
