Impact of CSR on Education Sector
The CSR mandate has faced much debate among India Inc. as an extra tax on corporates, incurring additional administrative burden and a rather indirect way to direct corporate behaviour. However, there was little debate on the inclusion of education within
- PDF / 209,055 Bytes
- 18 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 67 Downloads / 242 Views
Abstract The CSR mandate has faced much debate among India Inc. as an extra tax on corporates, incurring additional administrative burden and a rather indirect way to direct corporate behaviour. However, there was little debate on the inclusion of education within the purview of the mandate as the gap between need and national spend in education (3.9 % of India’s Gross Domestic Product—GDP, though the ask was for at least 6 %) was evident even to the most cursory observer. This chapter seeks to recognise the need for CSR contribution to education in India, understand the history of education and philanthropy existing in India, the CSR spend on education, the impact of the CSR legislation on it, the three large trends that supported PROFESSIONALISING of CSR IN EDUCATION and role of CSR in education. Keywords CSR funding • Professional monitoring • Education infrastructure • Educational capacity building • Funding learner skills • Education funding • Innovation funding
1 Introduction Education has received universal acceptance as a worthy candidate of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities both from the regulators and industry. Although, there was much debate on the need to regulate CSR spend of certain companies in India; however, there was little debate on the inclusion of education within the purview of the mandate. For many years, India’s national spend on education had hovered around 3.9 % of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (World Bank Statistics, 2016), though the ask was for at least 6 % of the GDP. The gap between need and spend was evident even to the most cursory observer.
M. Sengupta (*) Advisor Education and Skills, New Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 N. Mitra, R. Schmidpeter (eds.), Corporate Social Responsibility in India, CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41781-3_4
33
34
M. Sengupta
2 The Need for CSR Contribution to Education in India Education in India suffers from serious lack of quantity and quality, the former having proved to be easier to resolve than the latter. Official statistics from the District Information System for Education (DISE) state that student enrolment at starting grades has improved over the years and most children are registered to enter the schooling system (about 106 %; reported by DISE, 2014–2015); however, the dropout rates still remain alarming (DISE, 2014–2015). At the end of the primary school, eight out of ten progress to the next level and this goes down further to 3.9 at the end of senior secondary school, which means, only four in ten progress to higher education. This includes both public and private provision. Teacher shortages, attendance and quality are deserving of interventions. According to the PAISA (Planning, Allocations and Expenditures, Institutions Studies in Accountability) 2011–2012 report, allocations to teachers accounted for 44 % of the budget, the largest share of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA)1 budget, yet teacher shortages are est
Data Loading...
