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International Education Foundation (IEF)

International Education Foundation



IEF acts as a catalyst to provide high quality school education to all sections of the society including those that are underserved currently. The foundation believes in developing platforms that can be benchmarked and replicated.

The IEF Platforms include:

A network of high quality low-cost schools across India.

Centers of excellence in teacher leadership and education.

Scholarships.


India: Education Scenario

School Going Population in India:

The current population of India is 1.1 billion and is growing at the rate of 1.4% per annum. Approximately, 35% of the population is in the age group of 3-18 years, forming a group of 401 million, which is the potential school-going population[1].

[1] Source: Ernst & Young, 2005

Some statistics:

• India is ranked 167 out of 202 countries in terms of national literacy rates – UNESCO study. • Enrolment rate for 5 to14-year-olds is only 66% which is the lowest of all countries as per UNESCO.

• India has the highest student-teacher ratios in a study conducted by UNESCO countries at the primary and lower secondary levels, 40.2 and 37.2 students per teacher respectively. Teachers at these levels also have one of the highest annual workloads.

• With government being cash strapped, private sector participation in the schooling sector has reached 9% at the primary level, 23.5% at the upper primary level and 57.5% at the higher secondary level. A growing trend is that a significant chunk of this growth is focused towards the more affluent sections of the economy. This increases the risk of leaving out large sections of the society from high quality education.

• Given the capital intensive nature of investments in school and long gestation periods, private sector participation is gradually being restricted to only those who have access to capital and high level contacts. Risk capital for qualified education entrepreneurs is not available.



International Education Foundation focuses on developing platforms that can help serve the educational needs of all sections of the society. Each platform that has been developed complements the other to help provide high qualityeducation to as many children as possible. These platforms are not region or country specific. They can be scaled up and replicated internationally.

Platform 1 Network of schools across India

Platform 2 IIEs - Centers of excellence in teacher education

Platform 3 Scholarships


First Platform: Network of Schools

25 Schools

• Demographic Focus: Low to middle income segment • Focus on B & C type cities. A type cities already have access to high quality schools.

• Social Entrepreneurship: Will provide risk capital to qualified social entrepreneurs focusing on education. Initial focus is on high credibility educators who want to establish schools. • Institutional Money in Education: The financing model for the schools will help promote flow of institutional money in “sustainable” schools. IEF will use securitization of future cash flows or a private equity fund model to finance projects.

Impact

• Peak student strength at each school ~ 2400 to 3000 students. This implies providing high quality education at low cost to ~ 60,000 to 75,000 students. Each school will have ~ 180 new admissions each year therefore IEF can reach more than 100,000 students through its network of 25 schools over a period of 10 years.

• Each IEF school will set the quality benchmark for education. This will raise the education quality standards in regions where IEF schools operates.

• IEF schools will allow institutional investors to earn respectable IRRs while delivering value to the society. This might encourage a much needed flow of institutional money in the education sector.

• IEF will Provide risk capital to high quality education entrepreneurs will help develop equity for these entrepreneurs who can use this equity to scale up with IEF’s help.


Third Platform: Scholarships

It is IEF’s goal to reach out to provide high quality education to as many children as possible.Between the IEF network of schools and the IIEs, IEF will be able to cover all demographicsegments. Scholarships will another platform that will allow IEF to help reach out to a large number of students.

Benefits:

• Will allow IEF to assist students who want to study in private schools other than those that are part of the IEF network.

• Scholarships will allow IEF to work nationally.

Scholarships


Second Platform: IEF Institute Of Education (IIE)

6 IIEs

• Since IEF schools will be sustainable in nature they will charge some level of fees from students. This would leave a vast majority of the target population un-served. IIEs will allow IEF to cover all segments of the society including those who cannot afford to pay. • There are about 3.4Million teachers in India but not one single institute of global standards.

Research:• Act as a platform to collect and disseminate world-class research from global institutions in India. This would also imply converting content in Indian languages.• There are local and regional variations in education systems and policies. The 6 IIEs spread across India will assist in developing region specific research apart from conducting research that can be utilized nationally.

Training: • Preparing future leaders for classrooms , schools and policy making. • Provide options to students that will enable students of CETEs to be employable globally.

Thought Leadership: • IIEs will bring in thought and practice leaders in education from around the world.

Community Leadership: • Each of the 6 CETEs will engage with schools (private, government and community) in their region for supporting and enhancing education quality.

IIE (Centers of Excellence in Teacher Education): • World-class research led teacher education and education leadership institutes. • Benchmark for teacher education and education leadership in India.

Locations: National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkotta,Bhopal/Indore. First IIE is being set up in Delhi.

Some Key Points

Activities


Management Team

Ms. Ketaki Sood

Ms. Sood is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Modern School Trust since 1975. The Modern School Trust runs some of the best private schools in India. She has over 30 years of experience in supervising and managing schools. She held the post of Chairperson of Modern School, Barakhamba Road and Modern School, Vasant Vihar. She is a member of the Governing Board of Pathways World School. With over 35 years experience she is recognized as a leading Interior Designer. She is currently involved in setting up and managing a senior citizens home.

Dr. Achal Bhagat

Dr. Bhagat (MD), is a leading authority on mental health related issues in India. Dr. Bhagat is the Senior Consulting Psychiatrist at Apollo Hospital which is the largest private healthcare provider in India. His views are widely sought after in areas that include institutional development, mental health and training. He is actively involved on the board of several national level initiatives Saarthak (a voluntary organization focusing on mental health), Aadi. Dr. Bhagat is a Gold Medalist winner for his MBBS. He obtained his MRCPsych from the Oxford University.

Mrs. Lata Vaidyanathan

Mrs. Vaidyanathan is the Principal of Modern School (www.modernschool.net) which is one of the leading K12 schools in India. She has over 25 years experience in the education industry and is recognized as one of the leading experts in running primary and higher secondary schools in India. Provide information on her CBSE related work. She serves on the advisory board of several educational initiatives including Pathways International School.

Akhil KishoreAkhil Kishore, in his most recent assignment he was heading corporate development for GEMS Education (www.gemseducation.com) in India. GEMS Education is one of the largest global private sector company in the education sector. Akhil is an MBA from Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management, Phoenix, AZ. Prior to GEMS Education, he worked with Deutsche Bank in New York. The financial model that IEF would be implementing to finance schools was conceptualized and developed by Akhil.

The governing board of IEF has over 80 years of operational experience in the education sector with experience ranging from setting up green-field education projects to managing some of the leading schools in India.