Education For The Masses

With a raft of reforms, growing market value and influence in other countries, India’s education sector is making significant strides.

- Neil King

India’s education sector throws up some impressive figures. The country has more than 1.4 million schools, with over 227 million students enrolled and more than 36,000 higher education institutes.

In 2016, the education market was valued at around $100bn — a figure that is expected to grow to $116bn this year — buoyed by its fast growing e-learning market, which is ranked as the second largest in the world behind the United States.

According to the India Brand Equity Foundation’s 2017 Education and Training report, the country’s higher education system is the largest in the world, enrolling more than 70 million students. The report adds that these figures have boomed since the turn of the millennium, with India creating capacity for an extra 40 million students in less than 20 years.

Since April 2000, foreign direct investment into the sector is reported to have neared $1.5bn, with the government’s Union Budget pledging almost $12bn to the sector for 2017-18 — up 9.9 per cent on 2016-17.