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ShikshaJaal

Knowledge Delivery for the Next Millennium


Dr. Prithwis Mukerjee,
http://www.yantrajaal.com

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 :

 The development of advanced pesticides and fertilizers gave a big boost to the
Green Revolution. Suddenly the growth of food grains outstripped the growth of food
demand.

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
ShikshaJaal - 2001

want 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% 4200000 4536000 4898880


inflation)
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

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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. During the Second World War, when German
U-Boat “wolfpacks” were decimating Allied tonnage and threatening to choke off war supplies to
Europe, the US government had created such a program to build and deliver “Liberty” ships at the
rate of one per week from each shipyard. The same management principles can be used here.

The “zero” year should also be used to

 Recruit and train upto 3000 teachers


 Tie up with a computer company to create the training modules. Costs for these
can be offset by getting them sponsored by FMCG companies
 Identify locations and negotiate for acquisition of land and electricity connection

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
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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 prithwis@yantrajaal.com or through his ezine website
http://www.yantrajaal.com – Intelligent reading for the Connected Community

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ShikshaJaal - 2001

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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