To deliberate upon the Budget expectations for India’s three most important growth areas: Education, Entrepreneurship and Employability; a Roundtable conference was organized today by StratFirst India and ASSOCHAM. Sh. S P Shukla, Hon’ble MoS for Finance, GoI was the chief guest at the conference.  Prof. Amitabh Matoo, Chief Mentor, StratFirst India delivered the welcome address. Prof. Furqan Qamar, Secretary General, AIU was the Guest of Honour at the conference.

With the present demographic distribution, the nation needs to create 10-12m jobs every year in the coming decades to provide quality of life for its growing population. A 7% GDP growth rate, with a per capita income rising from US$2,000 to just under US$3,000 per year, will boost quality of life for more than 1.25bn citizens.As per an ASSOCHAM report, India can realize its aspirations by creating new capabilities, which requires contributions from 3E’s- Education, Entrepreneurship and Employability. The three are interlinked: growth for one enables growth for others. This would be the largest national development effort any democracy has ever attempted. Reaching this goal will call for a concerted effort—from academia, industry, entrepreneurs, investors, and government leaders.

An elite panel comprising Padma Shri Dr. Pritam Singh; Dr. SatbirBedi, IAS, Chairperson, NCTE;  Rajesh Agarwal, IAS, Joint Secretary, MSD, GoI; Dr. Prashant Bhalla, Chairman, ASSOCHAM National Council for Education; Mr. NipunGoenka, Co-Chair of ASSOCHAM National Council for Education; Dr Yogesh Tyagi, VC, Delhi University; Mr. RaghavPodar, Chairman, Podar University; Dr. Sanjay Srivastava, VC, Manav Rachna University; Ms. NupurGoenka, MD, La Petite Schools; Mr. Anand Rai, VP, IILM; Ms. Bharti Sharma, Sr Academic Director, G D Goenka; Dr. H Chaturvedi, Director BIMTECH; Mr Manish Prakash, MD, Microsoft; Mr. MaheshwarPeri, Chairman, Careers 360; Mr. Sanjay Gunjoo, CEO, Bhaskar Foundation; Dr. S. Shantha Kumar, PVC, GD Goenka University; MrVikas Gupta, MD, Wiley India; Mr. Himanshu Gupta, MD, S Chand Group; Mr. RajkumarNahata, lawyer/CA; and Mr. Satya  Narayanan, Chairman, CL Educate, among others.

Budget recommendations for Education:

Permanently lower costs:

All ancillary services to higher educational institutions have been made taxable under GST increasing the cost of education by about 7%. These services are generally outsourced so that institutions can focus on providing quality education. It is recommended that if at all, GST is to be charged, it should be at lower rates of say, 5%, on basic outsourcing services to education like transportation, admissions etc. It is proposed to partially exempt GST on outsourced services – in Higher Education from 18% to 5%, to create low-cost educational institutions that offer services at all levels- primary, secondary and higher education.

Education for all:

A scheme on the lines ofAyushman Bharat-National Health Protection Scheme (AB-NHPS)for education can help provide the benefit of education to the masses of the country. The bright students must be rewarded under such schemes.

Tax sops to attract quality employment in education: it was noted during the conference that  India lacks more than 2 million teachers. To motivate people to join teaching as a profession, it is proposed that teachers, professors and researchers be eligible for a special tax regime. Taxable income for employees of educational institutions can be calculated after giving a standard deduction or raising a threshold exemption limit for them. The TDS certificate in Form 16 from an educational institution should be considered as a valid document for claiming the exemption/deduction.  Further it was recommended that the government should:

• Increase budget spending on teacher evaluation and training
• Income tax deductions under Section 80G upto 150% for donations made to education
• PMRF Scheme needs to be launched for other disciplines like education and management to promote research and improve quality of learning available.
• More investment in State Universities and inheritance Tax
• Increase in budget allocation for education
• Ensure a system of robust follow up is set up so that policies laid down are actually implemented and the funds are utilized judiciously.

• It is proposed that university (of any kind) when completes 150 years should be given a grant of Rs. 300 crore. Universities that complete 100 years should be granted Rs. 200 crore and Rs. 100 crore for those that complete 50 years.

Budget recommendations for entrepreneurship:

Industry Mentored Start Ups: Mentors, incubators, and entrepreneurial networks from industry can play a vital role for new entrepreneurs, offering them needed skill sets and guidance, as well as the ability to accelerate decision making.

Making financial capital available:  A robust regulatory environment for investors that ensures market protections and safeguards and thus allows venture capital and private equity to flourish. Debt markets and credit assessment must also be available.

Making Talent available to Start Ups: Public and private educational institutions play a leading role in supporting education and training, and the corporate sector could contribute content, curriculum, and delivery mechanisms (such as on-site learning).

Provide enabling infrastructure: Create an environment conducive to business formation: making it easy to launch and operate a business. Government plays a role in three primary areas: facilitating the ecosystem (for example, by funding innovation labs and working with stakeholders to shape policy), enabling capital to flow smoothly, and reforming regulations and procedures to facilitate establishing new businesses.

Recommendations for Employability:

Determining key performance indicators: Today the skill development initiatives focus on number metrics with minimal or no tracking of the students trained and placed. The success stories can be shared so that it provides a medium for the youth to explore the possibilities of its up-scaling /replication.

Strengthening Private sector participation: Incentivize industry to either set up training institutions in PPP mode in industry clusters to facilitate availability of trained manpower for big and MSME units, or to adopt existing government ITIs and Polytechnics. The industry may also be encouraged to provide their work benches for training their staff as teacher.

Availability of financial resources and systemic reforms: Consolidate resources at all levels and create a national training fund to be accessed by all but operated by Ministry of Skill Development on priority basis. The funds could be bilateral/multilateral donations, CSR funds, welfare funds etc. Together with finances, it is also necessary to speed up implementation of National Skill Qualification Framework; putting in place robust Labor Market Information System for effective dynamic interventions; and Creation of a pool of trainers’ assessors for quality and reliable outcome based training.

Prof Amitabh Mattoo said: “I congratulate StratFirst India and ASSOCHAM for organizing an excellent discussion on the subject. Fostering conversations in these key sectors, involving all stakeholders is the only way forward.”

Ms. Nancy Jain, Hon. Director, StratFirst India said: “We are very glad to see the level of interest in Public Private Partnership to give Education, Entrepreneurship and Employability a new paradigm.Thankful to ASSOCHAM, our partners in today’s round table conference. We are greatly looking forward to presenting the report from today’s discussion to the Hon’ble Minister for Finance, Shri ArunJaitleyji”.

The deliberations will be compiled in the form of a recommendation report and presented to the Hon’ble Finance Minister, GoI.