Education opportunities in India
Published 27 October 2014
1. Market potential
The Indian education and training market is a priority market for UKTI Education owing to:
- Potential for significant future business opportunities
- Potential opportunities existing across a number of sub-sectors – including vocational education and training for the private/corporate sector, higher education (HE), teacher training and educational technology
- UK education and training expertise being highly valued in India across a range of industry verticals
2. Potential contract opportunities
Potential opportunities in India include:
- Opportunities for training for corporates that have developed since the introduction of the requirement for large corporations operating in India to spend at least 2% of average net profits on government-approved categories of corporate social responsibility, including promotion of education and employment-enhancing vocational skills
- Opportunities in the vocational education and training market in support of the Government’s ambition to increase numbers undertaking vocational education and training to 500 million people by 2020, a policy adopted in 2009
- Support to develop teacher training programmes as part of India’s broader ambition to create an additional 1.2 million teachers over the next five years
- The potential passing of the Foreign Universities Bill, which would allow top international universities to set up campuses in India, offers opportunities for both the UK further education and higher education sectors
View all education opportunities in India
3. Additional market information
3.1 Geographical considerations
India is one of the most populous nations in the world, occupying most of the subcontinent of South Asia. India has undertaken a steady programme to increase economic openness since the early 1990s. A recent report by credit-rating agency Moody’s said that India’s annual rate of GDP growth would accelerate to 6.5% by the end of 2015, from 5.2% in 2014.
3.2 Education sector overview
The recently-elected Indian government, formed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party, believes that education is the most powerful tool for the advancement of India and the most potent weapon to fight poverty. The BJP manifesto stated that public spending on education would be raised to 6% of GDP. The government is seeking to revitalise and reorganise the education sector across all levels. It plans to focus on school education, higher education (HE) as well as professional and vocational training. The growing skills gap faced by industry, teamed with a large and growing population, have placed the skills agenda high on the priority list for the new Indian government. The government has promised to establish Indian Institutes in Technology and Indian Institutes of Management in all states. This is in line with India’s employment strategy set out in the 2012 to 2017 Twelfth Plan. The Plan aims to develop the skills of 500 million people by 2022 and includes a need to train 79,000 trainers. Highest priority will be given to addressing the acute shortage of teachers and researchers and the low numbers of employable graduates. .