Catapulting the meritorious students, who are about to complete their secondary education with significant financial challenges, towards a better education. 

Problem

India has more than one lakh secondary and senior secondary schools catering to about 30 million students (average teacher to student ratio 1:34). The secondary stage consists of class 9-12 students. A report from UNESCO says that although nearly half the children belonging to this cohort were enrolled, only a mere 20% actually attended schools. The secondary stage of education is particularly critical because of a lot of reasons. Firstly, the class tenth examination acts as a separator, students are broadly divided into three cohorts: science, commerce & arts (in decreasing order of prestige and lucrativeness). Secondly, there are problems both on the supply & the demand side. The students who have reached up to this point, a majority of them have done it with great difficulty facing multiple challenges. They cannot and will not continue to the next stage until adequate help is given to them. On the demand side the infrastructure of the schools is laughable and many of them lack the basic requirements (bathrooms, libraries). The teachers do not have proper training and are handling multiple subjects and grades. There is little done to motivate them to provide a better teaching. The seriously understaffed school’s problems are exaggerated by the elevated level of teacher absence & lower levels of teaching activity. Thirdly, the science cohorts need a much better infrastructure in schools (laboratories for physics, chemistry, biology), the level & quality of teacher required is quite high. All of these are seriously lacking and paving a way for the growth private schools and tutors. The quality of education in this private setting is way better than that of the government funded schools. But the prices that these private entities charge are exorbitant. Hence it is largely available to the upper middle-class families. Finally, there is the lack of information to the students and their families regarding the vast possible fields of education and the routes or means to attain them.

Solution

Providing an array of services/solutions to the student to take him/her through the secondary and senior secondary level of education to finally land in a quality college. On the least side our enterprise will be providing career counselling and provide information regarding the various scholarship grants/schemes provided by government, NGOs, private companies, private coaching centers etc. On the other end of spectrum is providing the students with residential coaching centers along with career counselling and other facilities for holistic development of the student. The array of services will be provided in two formats; Premium (urban) and Economy (semi-urban/rural). The urban setting will be differentiated by adding premium features. The core offering remains the same but say, the classes in urban setting will be of much premium feel and look. Cross subsidization will be done to benefit the students in semi-urban/rural setting. Apart from cross-subsidization the grants from governments and other private corporations will be further driving the costs down in the Economy format. In the long Alumni donations can further help in this aspect. The economy coaching centers will be set up in strategic points to make the travel for the students to be minimal. SUPER 30 is doing some similar work for the financially challenged students helping them to realize their dreams of studying in the IITs and thus empowering them towards a better future. My aim is to create a bigger version of this catering to a far larger student base and guiding them not just for IITs but covering a much larger space on the education spectrum. The quantum of help that the student receives in terms of career counselling, information, coaching, meals, residence will be decided on the basis of the student`s capabilities, amount that his family can bear and finally the amount of subsidy we can provide based on the cross-subsidy and other grants.

Problem Scenario

Solution Scenario

Assumptions

• Need assumption: Parents and students of numerous families want to send their children for higher education. They are willing to go a certain extent to obtain the best education possible but are limited by their financial constraints, lack of information, lack of infrastructure leading to connectivity problem between the school and the student. 
• Technical assumption: We will be able to gather enough quality teachers, career counselors, who are interested in our venture and also, build coaching centers (both Premium & Economy formats) in different locations.
• Production assumption: That we will be able to expand the model across various districts in India is a challenging production related assumption.
• Commercial assumption: The business model will be sustainable with the cross-subsidized structure that we are planning.  

Low cost Experiment

• First experiment will be done on the demand side, gauging the interest among students and parents for the solution that we are offering. For this experiment the sample would be students of decent government funded schools in classes 9 & 10. Government schools generally have a large proportion of students from lower middle class and poor families facing financial challenges. The fact that the school has a decent academic record ensures that we might find quality students with high potential, given they get the right support. Surveys will be conducted with both the students and their families to gauge their interest, their financial conditions, their willingness to pay, the services that they want from our portfolio, how far can the student travel to obtain the services etc. A small survey team of 5-6 members will be sufficient to conduct this experiment. The costing for this experiment is estimated at no more than INR 5000.
• Second experiment will be on the supply side. Professional teachers and students pursuing higher education (doctorate, masters, etc) will be our faculty. Hence a survey needs to be conducted with them to understand their payment expectations, their willingness to travel to deliver the classes especially in the semi-urban or rural format, their counselling abilities and finally willingness to collaborate with us in this venture.

Prototype: