Promoting Quality School Education through Corporate Social Responsibility, Ashish Dhawan, November 12, 2014

12 November 2014

INVESTMENT IN LEARNING

Promoting Quality School Education through Corporate Social Responsibility

12 November 2014 Investment in Learning Slide: 2

AIMS OF THE REPORT

To guide companies who are formulating or revising their CSR policies in how to structrure a strategy focused on education by:

• Highlighting key opportunity areas that can drive education quality • Suggesting overarching strategies for CSR in any area of education

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EDUCATION QUALITY IS THE NEED OF THE HOUR

• 26 crore school children, 14.5 lakh schools • Issue of access to schools largely resolved

o 97% enrolment in elementary (ASER 2013)

• But massive quality challenges persist o Class 5: 53% of students cannot read a

Class 2 text and 74% cannot do simple division (ASER 2013)

o 41% of CEOs in India had to cancel or delay a key initiative because of talent-related constraints (PwC)

• Need to complement initiatives such as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan with quality-focused interventions

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CATALYSING QUALITY THROUGH CSR INVESTMENT

• Opportunity for Strategic CSR

o Government spends 3.6 lakh crore annually on education

o Limited scope for innovation in

government system o Corporate funds can be used as R&D to

develop new models and gather evidence of their impact

o Scale effective models through policy

changes and government partnerships

1. Public-Private Partnership Schools

2. Remedial education

3. School leadership

4. Teacher training

5. Technology in education

6. Social integration in private schools under the Right to Education Act

7. Equity in education for marginalised groups

8. School Management Committees

9. Early childhood education

10. Co-scholasting learning

11. Nutrition and health

12. Vocational education in secondary schools

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12 OPPORTUNITY AREAS

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PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP (PPP) SCHOOLS

• Opportunity: o PPP schools are publicly owned and operated by

NGOs o Mumbai passed PPP policy with per-child

reimbursement to school operators; Delhi, Chennai, MP also interested

o PPP schools can act as innovation labs for government system, e.g. teacher training

• Role for Corporates:

o Provide gap funding to NGO school operators o Contribute to collaborative endowment fund for

operators

• Example: o Thermax and NGO partner, Akanksha

Foundation, operate 6 PPP schools in Pune o These schools have demonstrated significantly

higher results than government schools

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VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

• Opportunity: o Vocationalisation of Secondary Education

Scheme introduces vocational curriculum beginning Class IX

• Role for Corporates:

o Help design vocational curriculum and teacher training o Provide guest faculty; practical training

opportunities for students o Fund NGO to support implementation of

vocational education

• Example: o Wadhwani Foundation has partnered with

Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, to implement vocational education in secondary schools

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SOCIAL INTEGRATION UNDER RTE

• Opportunity: o RTE provides for 25% reservation in

private schools for EWS children o Government reimburses on per-child

basis o Additional funding needed for social

integration

• Role for Corporates: o Provide top-up funding for

remediation, extracurricular activities, field trips, and teacher training for social inclusion

o Employee volunteering to mentor EWS students

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OTHER STRATEGIES FOR MAXIMISING IMPACT

Design a focused strategy

Concentrate resources on a single issue or limited set of issues

Collaborate with other stakeholders

Partner with NGOs with implementation expertise

Pool resources with other companies to achieve greater scale

and impact

Take a long-term view

Recognise that change is likely to be a slow process

Set out short-term, mid-term and long-term objectives

Invest in monitoring and evaluation

Use data to refine the approach and decide when to scale up