The government’s plan to provide education to India’s rural masses has not found many

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With private companies shying away from partnering with government in rural areas, the Public Private Parnership (PPP) model seems to have been limited to some cities and urban districts.

As per an HRD ministry proposal, 6000 model schools were to be set up on PPP mode in partnership with private companies. While 2500 schools are likely to be set up in urban areas under this scheme, spreading model school education to rural areas with 3500 schools may remain a pipe dream as investors are not willing to put their money into farflug areas.

“I've been working on this for over a year. It is very difficult to get private players to invest in schools in rural areas. Whenever we ask firms to consider projects in rural areas, they ask “what's in it for me?” HRD minister Kapil Sibal pointed out. He was speaking at the seventh International Educational Summit held by Assocham.

The government is banking on the PPP model to mobilise funds and extend the reach of education across the country. However, attracting private players remains a challenge. Not that the private sector has been completely apathetic to the needs of rural India. IT firms such as Wipro, HCL and Google among others have committed significant investments to plug the gaps in the country’s rural education space. In December 2010, Wipro chairman Azim Premji, created a $2 billion fund to improve education in rural and small-town India. IT giant HCL founder, Shiv Nadar has started VidyaGyaan, a unique experiment to provide public school-style residential education to children from rural communities. Google is supporting the Bharti Foundation’s Satya Bharti School programme with a $ 5 million fund.

However, this seems to be completely inadequate given Sibal’s craving for more ‘proactive’ participation by Indian companies in rural education. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the flagship programme for universalising elementary education, is being implemented in partnership with state governments to cover 192 million children in 1.1 million habitations by setting up the infrastructure.

At the Indian Education Congress 2011 held recently, industry experts had pushed for PPP model in education . Shantanu Prakash, chairman, Educomp Solutions said, “There is a huge shortage that exists. Unless we allow large scale private funding to come in, we will always speak of shortages. There is a huge gap in meeting the middle class aspirations and there is no industry other than education that has such scope.”

Ashok Ganguly, former chairman, Central Board of Secondary Education said: “In India, primary education sector is quite good. There are plenty of options available. However, the efficiency of secondary education system is low. In the next 3-5 years we need to double the number of secondary schools. Government alone cannot fulfill the needs, hence there is a requirement for private funding.”