100% FDI in Education?

The outflow from India on education to foreign countries is more than Rs 20,000 crore. Should 100% FDI investment be allowed in education and would it benefit the country? The answer to this is tricky. India on paper has allocated 6% of the National Income for expenditure towards education but the fact still remains that this has not been put in action. A 100% FDI was proposed in February 2007 but is still under the rugs. The fact is that if you are a believer in free markets than no sector should be government regulated especially when the country has one of the worst literacy rates in the world. Experts are of the opinion that the government sees this as a cultural and heritage issue rather than a market driven principle which is successful in many Scandinavian countries and in several parts of Europe. There is little or no funding for primary education for the poor in the country because that costs the government money and thus quotas are a easy scapegoat.

The issue of Karnataka enforcing Kannada as a compulsory 1^st language in schools proves this point. With an evolving world, knowledge needs to evolve and if privatization and globalization is the need of the hour then that is what needs to be done. History proves that customers at every level have benefited from free markets and Airlines and Telecom in India are living examples of this.