Sunday Posts

Indian Education is a fascinating opportunity. It has scale and an extensive ecosystem of demand. It is badly regulated, but as such things mean in India, which helps the people who are already in and keep others out of it. As the Indian consumers get richer and demand more education, the opportunity in India gets more attractive. This is one of those multi-billion dollar market opportunities, which seem to lay untapped. And, as it is happening in other industries, one could reasonably expect a world-beating company being made by this market. Following the classic model of business growth, it should be possible for a visionary company to take advantage of this relatively protected domestic market and emerge as a player in the global stage. So far, it has failed to happen. There are some Indian organisations came close, NIIT and Aptech, the two computer training companies, among them. But in a fascinating saga worthy of strategy case studies, they both lost steam just when it seem...

I have written about vocational education and the imperative of fresh thinking in the field. My point is that we may be at an inflection point in the history of work, both in terms of technology and in terms of economics, and one needs to carefully think through the likely path in their own country context to develop an appropriate model of vocational education that works for the people. The current models, rolled out primarily for political reasons, unthinking, badly implemented and out of step with time, usually works for no one other than providers, usually local big businesses, and global publishers, who tend to recycle their obsolete materials into the developing countries. I find it fascinating that governments around the world has now bought this vocational education mantra, but doing it so badly that they are doing more harm than good. My ideas are partly a reflection of my experience, and I thought of writing about my experience in Indian vocational education in general ...

I read with interest a press interview given by R S Pawar , the Chairman of NIIT , on the subject of NIIT University's launch of a MBA programme. Being an NIIT student first and then an employee for several years, I regard Mr Pawar as a thought leader and a pioneer in Private Education business in India. Despite many criticisms that NIIT faced for its uncontrolled growth and resultant inability to control the quality of services, Mr Pawar and his colleagues had a vision which transformed India in a way. I know the persistent criticism is that they just took the opportunity presented to them, but this comes from people who have not seen the hard work, the management sophistication, the long term strategic thinking, commitment to professional business practises that built NIIT . I have, first hand, and therefore, I hold NIIT in very high esteem. Therefore, what Mr Pawar says about the MBA programme is worth listening to. This is of course just a Press Release, orchestrated, n...