Dr. Prithwis Mukerjee,

New Millenium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative

June 2000

 

What does India lack ? On the face of it nothing. There is no dearth of arable land or mineral resources. The weather is not harsh and the occasional drought notwithstanding, we are in a position to grow our own food. Our scientists, engineers, farmers and craftsmen are not lacking in knowledge and skill. Our entrepreneurship – when not fettered ideology – knows no bounds. Indians outside India have done remarkably well in terms of economic prosperity. Still India remains at the bottom of the heap when it comes to poverty and quality of life. This is a riddle that no one quite knows the answer to.

Without going back into the deep, dark depths of history: for example the caste system, the Muslim invasion and lately colonial legacy, let us just look back at the fifty years that have elapsed since the foundation of the Republic. What has gone wrong ? The answer is simple … our population is growing faster than the inflation adjusted GDP. As a result while we have a small percentage of the population – politicians, corrupt bureaucrats, manipulative businessmen and very lately professionals in globalised companies – that has attained international economic standards, the large mass of average Indians are steadily slipping below the poverty line.

Various ham handed attempts to curb the growth of population have met with near total failure. Government diktat or economic inducement cannot curb population growth. Other than disease and high mortality rates – which are of course never desirable, the only known reason for a lower growth rate has been economic prosperity. The high correlation between of economic prosperity and low population growth has been established conclusively. But this is the classic Catch22 : because we are poor we breed like rats, because we breed like rats we remain poor. How can India break out of this vicious cycle ?

Let us look a little deeper into this vicious cycle. Is it economic well being that leads to lower population growth or is it education that goes along with prosperity, that is the real reason? On the other hand, is it lower population that leads to higher prosperity or is it education – and the marketable skills that go along with it – that is the real reason? Viewed from this perspective, it is very clear that high levels of education will certainly lead to both lower population growth as well as higher prosperity. Education is the silver bullet that will break the vicious cycle.

But despite half a century of the republic why is it that education has not penetrated to the desired level ? Unfortunately the answer again points back to population and poverty. Our economic resources do not permit us to cater to the educational requirements of the burgeoning population. Are we back to where we started ? Almost ….. but with one crucial difference. With technology we now have the wherewithal to break the vicious cycle. Consider the following analogy :

This sudden technology boost is what is needed to break the vicious cycle. It is true that we have been building schools since the foundation of the Republic but the speed at which we are adding seats to the nation’s classrooms is far slower than the rate at which we are adding children who want to a seat in the same classrooms. It is also very clear that the processes that we have today of adding seats is far to bureaucratic, corruption prone and downright inefficient to deliver any kind of effective results. What we need is a whole new technology plus a whole new management style to ensure that education spreads faster through this country – this is the concept behind ShikshaJaal.

ShikshaJaal is not a technology solution. Instead it is a politician-proof and bureaucrat-proof management process that will leverage technology to deliver education across the nation in a time-bound manner.

ShikshaJaal is 4-year time bound programme to set up three new schools in each Lok Sabha constituency in the country. Each school would have 5 teachers who would teach 10 classes in two shifts each. Since each teacher would be "general purpose" teacher, the courses would be available in the local language as a computer based training package on a local server. This server would be connected to a large central server through low bandwidth VSAT connections for regular updates of course material and Internet access. Each classroom would have at least one PC with direct projector for displaying computer based training courses on the wall with supplementary lectures and explanations by the teacher.

Capital cost for each school would be Rs. 42 lakhs and annual recurring cost inclusive of interest on capital would be Rs. 22 lakhs (please see Annexure A for further details). This is well within the MP Local Area Development funds that are regularly doled out to our lawmakers. Even otherwise, the yearly cash flow would be as following

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Capital Cost / School(with 8% inflation)

4200000

4536000

4898880

Number of new schools

542

542

542

Total Capital Cost

2276400000

2458512000

2655192960

Recurring Cost / School

1700000

1836000

1982880

2141510.4

Number of existing schools

0

542

1084

1626

Total running cost

0

995112000

2149441920

3482095910

Interest Cost @ 12% on capital

273168000

568189440

886812595.2

Total Cash Flow

2276400000

3726792000

5372824320

4368908506

Hence the cash requirements would rise from around RS 230 crores in the first year rising to about Rs. 540 crores in the third year and will stabilise at around Rs. 440 crores per year thereafter. These costs are eminently feasible for a country as large as India.

What is crucial however is a management structure through which this money is to be spent. Obviously the education ministry does not have the ability to run a project of this nature in an efficient and transparent manner. Instead we propose a limited company ("ShikshaJaal Ltd.") with 26% government equity with the rest being subscribed to by Indian corporates. The management team must be drawn from the best companies of the country by paying top salaries.

This company would run the programme on a build, operate and transfer basis. Each school would be run for three to five years by ShikshaJaal and would then be transferred to an appropriate agency that has a history of running schools – for example Society of Jesuits, Ramakrishna Mission, or any other private agencies. If no such agency is found appropriate, then the school would be handed over to the government. Such an agency would have the liberty to charge fees at rates agreed upon before the transfer of the school.

The primary source of funds for ShikshaJaal would be zero interest loans / grants from Government, philanthropic individuals and international funding agencies and all expenditure would be audited and published as per company law. The management team would be expected to deliver on the promised number of class room seats and the quality of the delivery would be evaluated by an independent audit commission where at least 75% of the members would be parents or guardians of current students. The rest would be drawn from academic circles.

ShikshaJaal would tie up with one or more well-known construction companies to set up a pre-fabrication facility where the bulk of the construction work would be carried out. Advanced building technology would be used to design modular buildings that can be carried on trucks to remote locations and "installed" in not more than one week. In fact the whole operation should run like an assembly line so that at after one year of preparation, ShikshaJaal should have the ability to "install and commission" 15 schools every week.

The "zero" year should also be used to

So that from year 1 ShikshaJaal can hit the ground running and start to meet its delivery targets.

What can go wrong ? and cause the whole scheme to fail.

First this concept may be thought so outlandish that it is not even considered or even if considered it is rejected. Wise men and women could consider such radical measures OR such stiff delivery targets to be quite impossible to implement. In that case there is nothing more that can be done. Next, politicians and bureaucrats can hijack the entire project and ShikshaJaal could become another government department or a PSU. That would also be the end of the story.

Assuming that ShikshaJaal survives such early scares and does come into existence, it would next run into the bureaucratic quagmire of land acquisition and electricity connection. The last hurdle would be the local neighbourhood hoodlum who would want the usual "cut" from any economic activity. All this can be overcome if the local MP and MLAs co-operate.

However if all goes well on the administrative front, the biggest challenge would be to put together a process that churns out 15 schools a week. This can be a tough job, but can be done if the design is simplified and standardised and all fabrication is done offsite at one or two central fabrication facilities. The assembly team would have to move in with all the components on trucks assemble the school and move on to the next constituency. This calls for project management skills of the highest level, but given the track record of Indian industry this should not be a problem.

Assuming that all this happens as expected, how does it benefit the country ? ShikshaJaal would have set in motion an irreversible process that results in approximately Rs. 500 crores per year being invested efficiently in primary education. The operative word is "efficiency" – India has been investing in education with very little impact on the overall quality of life in the country. Once this investment opportunity is opened up we would be adding 2,00,000 "quality" classroom seats in the country on a continuous basis.

This cannot but have a major beneficial effect on the country. Jai Hind.

About the Author : Dr Prithwis Mukerjee is an Executive Director of PricewaterhouseCoopers Ltd. He can be contacted through email at [email protected] or through his ezine website http://www.yantrajaal.com – Intelligent reading for the Connected Community

Annexure : Cost Break Up for Cash Flow analysis

Capital Costs

Built Up area for each school (sq. foot)

4000

Construction Cost per sq. foot

500

Cost of civil construction for each school

2000000

Computer equipment at each school

Number of servers

1

Number of PCs

20

Number of projectors for mass education

5

Number of VSATs sets

1

Cost of server

50,000

Cost of PCs

30,000

Cost of Projectors

200000

Cost of VSATs and related equipment

300000

Cost of networking

50,000

Capital Cost of computers and communication eqpt

2000000

Generator

200000

Total Capital Cost

4200000

Annual Recurring Cost

Number of teachers / school

5

Annual cost of each teacher

150000

Civil Maintenance (10% of construction cost)

200000

Equipment Maintenance at 20% of cost

400000

TDMA VSAT bandwidth (kbps)

8

TDMA VSAT bandwidth cost/kbps

30000

TDMA VSAT bandwidth costs

240000

Generator Fuel

100000

Total Recurring Cost

1690000

Annual interest on Capital Cost @ 12%

504000


 

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