New Delhi : – The 3rd Indian Education Congress which has been India’s leading grand education show initiated by Franchise India, held on the 3rd 2013 at The Claridges, Surajkund, Delhi/NCR, on 3rd-4th May 2013, 9:30 AM -6:00 PM. The first day conference has brought together over 40 industry veterans who have conferred about the upcoming opportunities and challenges in the Indian Education Eco-System and the Investment required to fill in the gaps and to further strengthen the Indian Education market.

Ms. Ritu Marya, Director Franchise India along with Mr. Amit Gupta, CEO, S. Chand Group, Mr. Andy Gray, Head Governing Council, Euro Schools International, Enayet Kabir, Head & AVP, Education Technopak unleashed a market report on “Indian Education Investment Report 2013”.  Report is a pioneering effort on a part of Franchise India Holding Ltd. to bring forth the persisting gaps changing consumption patterns, demographical investments and business opportunities existing in the current Indian education sector.

“The need to reform the Indian education system has become very prominent in past few years. To keep pace with the fast moving world of education there are a lot of aspects that the Indian education has to focus on. The Indian Education Congress has successfully covered as many aspects as possible, which could be fruitful if and when induced in our current education system” stated Mr. Gaurva Marya, Chairman, Franchise India

According to the report the education market in India currently stands at a whopping YoY growth of 15 percent. However there is a further demand of investments to the tune of USD 100 billion for construction and provisioning of education facilities especially in K – 12 and higher education segments. The current spending on Education stands at INR 1035 per month for an urban household and INR 293 for a rural household however consumers are willing to spend even higher spends if given access to quality education and this has brought players to the forefront. Likewise the private sector is rapidly spreading its horizon in the Education market and currently accounts for 48 percent of its total revenue. Realizing the pertinence of Private sector to uplift Indian Education the government has launched Public – Private Partnership to invest in the Education market. Besides being a regulated Industry in the formal sector to an extent the education Industry offers numerous investment opportunities for prospective investors.

The report highlights some of these opportunities and further elaborates the current demographical investments trends across different education segments such as Pre-Schools Education, K- 12 Education, Higher Education, Vocational Training / Institutions.

Pre-Schools Education Market largely unregulated, is set for a 26 percent growth over the next few years. This exemplifies the opportunities for education providers to enter Pre-School Education. Some of the new business opportunities existing in the Pre-School segment include Teacher’s training, inclusion of day care centers, provisioning of After-School extra-Curricular activities and edutainment.

The K-12 market though regulated offers a number of opportunities especially in the informal sector such as automated learning platforms, integration of ICT in Classrooms, diversification of Information sector in formal K-12 market and integration of Pre-School education with primary schooling. Higher education market is also flourishing with CAGR of 19 percent expected over the next couple of years. Investments in the sector are likely to be made in setting up education hubs and incubation centers, expanding existing institutions, developing physical infrastructure, combining vocational education with mainstream education making alternative use of premises and e-learning. In terms of Vocational training the major prospective centers from an investment perspective seems to be Banking and Financial Services, Hospitality, IT / ITES and Beauty and Wellness.

Mr. Marya further shared his insights on the Market Scenario, “Indian education industry today owing to the high need of quality education, upsurging demand of employable human resource needs focussed investments in Indian education both by the private enterprise and government. The current industry stats depict that the industry will have 13-15 percent year-on-year growth and reach USD 100 billion mark by the year end. The private sector and the alternative methods of teaching are helping to transform the education system at all levels from Pre-K to post-secondary. Among all the segments, private education stream has taken the lead which is growing at the rate of around 30 per cent and shares 48 percent of the total revenue stream.

He further stated, “Also, the Early Education , K-12 and vocational education franchise chains are expanding their wings all across the country as well as abroad. Within the education sector, pre-school and child enhancement education services together have taken the lead in franchising with a significant share of 35 per cent. This is followed by professional skill-based education and vocational courses which carry the weight of 30 per cent of the educational franchise industry.There are more than 50,000 franchised education outlets”

Mr. Amit Gupta, Chairman, Education Committee, PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry stated, “India is the one of the most emerging education market especially due to the upcoming generation who is willing to explore more and secondly due to the demographic dividends. However there exist certain gaps which are to be filled by govt. and private entities in order to sustain the overall ecosystem. Education sector should also be prioritized in a similar manner as Infrastructure sector, the return on education should be good, and government should work on the tax incentives of education. And also I believe that Government should spend high on sustaining and developing the common education across Tier 2, 3 and 4 cities.”

Prof. Parvin Sinclair, Director, NCERT stated, “Indian Education System is evolving right from the RTE act (Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education) that enacted in 2009, according to which schools were liable to provide 25 percent of Grade – 1 education to underprivileged children. Schools were accountable to implement this policy latest by 2012, however the implementation on this act has not been made extensively across states. I believe the private and government entities should make efforts to sustain the overall Education System.”

This two day conference successfully captured the current gaps and trends in the Indian Education Investment market and brought to the forefront the overall consumption patterns, investment opportunities and growth factors that are currently catapulting the Indian Education Scenario.

The first day of the conference covered an indepth analysis of the business opportunities in early learning, K-12, higher and vocational education, in which an education enterprise can operate in India with esteemed speakers on the panel sharing their experience include Dr. S. S. Mantha, Chairman, AICTE; Mr. Pawan Agarwal, Adviser (Higher Education), Planning Commission, GoI; Mr. Dilip Chenoy, MD, NSDC; Mr. Amit Gupta, CEO, S Chand Group; Mr. Vineet Joshi, Chairman, CBSE; Prof.(Mrs) Parvin Sinclair, Director, NCERT; Ms. Gowri Ishwaran, PadmaShree Awardee, Founding Principal-The Sanskriti School & CEO, tGELF Services; Dr. Pingali Venugopal, Former Dean, XLRI(Jamshedpur) Dr( Mrs.) Shayama Chona, Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan Awardee, Former Principal-DPS R K Puram & Founder, Tamana Special School; Prof. N. Ravichandran, Director, IIM-Indore; Prof. Ramesh Kanwar, Vice Chancellor, Lovely Professional University; Ms. Vanita Uppal, Principal, The British School; Ms. Madhulika Sen, Principal, Tagore International School; Mr. Karan Khemka, Partner, The Parthenon Group Mr. Narayanan Ramaswamy, National Head-Education, KPMG; Mr. Andy Gray, Head-Governing Council, Euro School International; Mr. Jayant Hari Har Lal, Execuitve Director, Shriram Education Trust; Mr. Samir Srivastava, Business Head-India; Vocational Education, VLCC Healthcare Ltd.; Prof. MJ Xavier, Director, IIM Ranchi; Mr. Roy Newey, Group Executive Director, A4e, UK; Mr. Nitesh Gor DL, Chief Executive, Avanti Schools Trust, UK; Mr. Alok Shivapuri, Principal, Institute of Hotel Management, Pusa; Mr. Jaiprakash S. Hasrajani, Co-Founder & CEO, Taaleem Academy Pvt Ltd Mr. Amol Arora, Vice-Chairman & Managing Director, SHEMROCK & SHEMFORD Group of Schools; Prof. P Rameshan, Director, IIM Rohtak; Ms Rekha Krishnan, Principal, Vasant Valley School & Mr. Prabhat Jain, Director, Pathways School

The conference was followed by The Indian Education Awards 2013, the most prestigious awards that recognized excellence in Education sector. Awardees received national recognition and were termed as best education entities in the country. Two very important reports were also launched during the show.