[OLPC India] India Digest, Vol 23, Issue 11

[Satish Jha]

Let us think from the point of how do we make it happen..
That will change the way we look at it..

How do banks finance education? It did not exist in the country just a few
years ago.. Now the banks finance @$50,000 per year for students who can get
admission overseas.. How did that happen??

Rs 15,000 can be a huge thing and can be a small thing..
Every single entrepreneur looks ta the funds raised for investment as a
manageable thing though typically its way beyond their capacity to come up
with..

Think like an entrepreneur and one may change the world.
Think like an employment seeking candidate and one may have to go hungry
many a nights..

A nation of entrepreneurs may have a better capacity to feed itself and
beyond..

As long as India was run by bureaucrats in the main, it was not spoken about
anywhere in the world with any sense of respect and then some very small
entrepreneurs changes it all.. Today, Bangalore is a better known city than
many of those that still live in their "glorious past"

I spoke to the IT minister of another country and suggested they should go
to IDA and raise funds at low interest rates with a 12 year moratorium. They
are moving in that direction. Will the Indian education minister or IT
minister think along those lines?

We seem happy that a couple million folks have given us some name globally
and get us some $50Bilion in forex every year.. But are we not a nation of
1200 million people? Are we not facing quality issue with the manpower that
could support global services? How do we invest in education of the next
generation? Let us begin thinking about it instead of being the nay-Sayers..

We have 15 years of experience to support that even in our country thinking
like an entrepreneur works.. Let us go and ask K V Kamath of ICICI Bank to
think about it and he will surely find a way or any other and all Bank
chairmen who can see beyond their nose, have interest in growth and building
a strong economy..

Thanks much
On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 11:43 AM, K. K. Subramaniam <subbukk at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Friday 31 Oct 2008 8:05:57 am Edward Cherlin wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 9:39 AM, K. K. Subramaniam <subbukk at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 22 Oct 2008 4:50:45 pm Satish Jha wrote:
> > >> So please spread the word, create proposals for schools, seek funding,
> > >> ask the banks to finance as an educational loan payable after 10
> years,
> > >
> > > You must be kidding :-). I don't know of any bank that would lend money
> > > to primary school children (and out of school children) to purchase
> > > computers.
> >
> > Never been done, therefore can't be done? Where would we be if our
> > scientists, inventors, and religious leaders had thought like that? Or
> > Muhammad Yunus?
> I didn't say it can't be done. I just pointed out that no such
> infrastructure
> exists today and filling the gap is not trivial due to economic realities.
> Grameen Bank is very different case because it deals with *economically
> productive* people not having access to *short term* loans.
>
> Consider:
>
> 1.  Banks only lend against collaterals. For many children and their
> families
> in the hinterlands, education is their first "asset". They have nothing to
> use as collateral. The cycle is usually broken by NGOs who raise funds to
> help communities raise the quality of education for their children. Many
> NGOs
> target children at high school and above because the payback period is
> shorter. Very few work at primary level (because of the huge numbers, high
> overheads and long payback period). IMHO, "asset formation" should be done
> for 6-12 age group because drop out is more than 45% at this stage.
>
> 2. INR 15,000 is a huge amount for most people. Capital is expensive in
> India
> and educational loans would cost upwards of 11%. Over a decade the loan
> amount would triple. An XO would depreciate long before a decade.
>
> Subbu
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> India at lists.laptop.org
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>
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