Here's how the market maven-turned-philanthropist is trying to level the playing field for 250 million school children and why this is India's time to rise and shine on the global stage
In an exclusive and wide-ranging conversation on Forbes India Pathbreakers, Ashish Dhawan, co-founder, Ashoka University, and founder and CEO, The Convergence Foundation talks about the cracks in India’s education system. On the one hand, there’s a need for world-class universities so that Indian colleges can feature among the top 100 global universities, but, on the other, there’s a bigger problem of ensuring 250 million school children get access to quality education. “But as you come to the bottom half, who are in government schools, if you look at the learning levels, I think we have a lot of room for improvement,” Dhawan says.
We, at the Central Square Foundation, are here to support the government. Both, at the Centre and in 12 states, we have a presence, and we are very excited because we have been pushed into mission mode. For the next 5 years, the resources are available, the political salience is there. We can see a real change start to happen on the ground. So, this 5-year mission I believe will now start to see, the way we have seen there’s been a big improvement in electrification or sanitation or now pipe water or roads. I think education will really start to improve in the coming years,” he adds.
Also read: How Ashish Dhawan gave up his high-flying investing career to solve India's education crisis
The problem they have is that they have managed to borrow very easily because the dollar has been the global currency. And Asia which is the big saver; Japan, China, etc. or the Middle East, has been more than willing to send its savings westward. I think that the tide is going to turn. The centre of gravity of the world is shifting to Asia. And so, I think now there will be stagnation in the Western world for a long period of time, both economically and in markets as well. And I think this is what I call the ‘The Rise of the Rest’.
If you look over the course of history, Angus Maddison has this beautiful book where he studies the economic history of the world. From 0 AD to almost 1800 AD or 1750 AD per capita income was not that different across the world because all societies were agrarian. It was only after the Industrial Revolution that the West took off and the rest got left behind. Now the rest is catching up. And so, I think that this is the era, over the next 50 years, of convergence. India being the most populous country in the world now, is at the centre of that convergence,” he explains.