Edu firms facing heat from NSDP
The ` 5,000 crore higher education industry is facing stiff competition from the skill development programmes and vocational training programmes initiated by the government in partnership with the private sector and the availability of alternate education facilities available online etc. Colleges are gradually losing out to IITs and other skill development programmes as students are getting skilled at less cost and are assured of a job.
Raj Mruthyunjayappa, managing director, APAC and EMEA, Talisma ( higher education in India), estimates that colleges have lost between ` 100 crore — ` 150 crore because of students dropping out of colleges. The revenue loss of students dropping off is significant. The drop out rate is 13 per cent in India and the revenue loss is 50 per cent of the revenue generated from each student.
“It’s an issue of a threeyear degree course versus a one year skill development course which is guaranteed to get you a job. Twenty per cent of our graduate programmes don’t give you jobs. Students’ demands are changing and whilst the top tier colleges are adapting, the mid- range are not capable of moving up,” said Mr Mruthyunjayappa.
Talisma has designed a constituent relationship management ( CRM) software that helps colleges to upgrade themselves and get the best students and results. The company is presently working with 40 colleges to enable them to up the value chain and also go online to provide students alternate ways to get better.
Thirty- four thousand colleges in India, he said, don’t have structural transparency and universities only monitor the academic part and not cutting edge requirements.
With 15.5 million students enrolled in higher education, the third largest student enrolment in the world, behind only the US and China, colleges face the tremendous challenge of changing their curriculum and methods of teaching to meet the skill requirements in various sectors.
Talisma is also working with government for skill upgradation and has designed solutions to help the government meet its objective of skilling 150 million Indians and 500 million people by 2022.