Is it time for a homegrown Prometric or Pearson in India?

These days, We are seeing a lot of action in education, especially higher education. The Right To Education bill is going to become a reality very soon. There is also a move to encourage private investment in higher education in a form different from what it is now. So far, there was not much participation from the corporate world especially in higher education. This is going to change soon. The HRD minister is also talking about having common syllabus and common entrance exams across the country for different professional courses. All these things open up a lot of interesting opportunities for related fields like test prep, test administration, and other allied services. The opportunity is huge. In this article, I will delve into details about one such opportunity.

Firstly, let us assume that the HRD minister is able to convince all the stakeholders to agree for a common entrance test for engineering admissions across India. This means someone should administer a single test for almost 4-5 million aspirants across India. Every year half a million people appear for IITJEE, 1 million for AIEEE and around 3-4 million for state entrance exams. I am sure someone like Prometric (who administer GRE, SAT & TOEFL) and Pearson (who administer GMAT) would salivate at this opportunity. But why no one in India is even looking at this opportunity is puzzling. It should be someone of the stature of Tata, who have built a lot of trust, who will get such an opportunity if the government allows a not-for-profit private organization to conduct such tests. Both Prometric and Pearson are companies with a long history and billions of dollars in turnover and would definitely be pitching in.

Secondly, we, in India are always used to tying up with someone rather than do something from scratch. I guess, it is this trait which is preventing us from going the whole distance in producing products which we can truly call, our own. I would not be surprised if some Indian company ties up with Prometric or Pearson to grab this opportunity. In the previous paragraph I just talked about tests related to admission to under-graduate courses in engineering. In addition there are tests for admission to medical, law & design schools and even post-graduate courses in various fields. In addition, with so many more schools & colleges getting established in the private domain, teacher certification will be another big opportunity. I am just talking about opportunities in India.

So far, most of the focus in India is on test-prep and this needs to change. The revered CAT has already gone to Pearson. We, in India, need to learn to go after bigger and larger opportunities. For that we should first start thinking big and long-term. Everyone in India is talking about education becoming the next big opportunity. But the questions is, are we preparing ourselves to capitalize on this opportunity? At-least as of now, I don't think so.