Online Education Is a Fast Growing Business: NIIT

Rahul K. Patwardhan, CEO, NIIT Limited

Computer training company NIIT believes that online education is a fast growing global growth arena, both in formal education and vocational training.

The company hopes that the government in India will introduce measures to ensure a level playing field for the highly regulated Indian online education and training companies against the much larger funded global players who are entering the Indian market aggressively, in an unregulated manner as far as Indian taxation regime is concerned.

“Further, we hope that the Finance Minister will announce specific measures in the Union Budget to help make education and skilling more affordable to the masses,” said Rahul K. Patwardhan, CEO, NIIT Limited.

[ Also Read: How India Abuses Children’s Right to Education ]

“Skill India and Digital India are two key and highly ambitious initiatives of Government of India, and in the forthcoming budget, we expect specific indirect tax rebates for the companies and its partners who are working towards making these initiatives a success,” Patwardhan says.

The Indian government has set an ambitious target of providing skills to 500 million people by 2022.

[ Can Your Education Get You the Right Job? ]

In a country where less than 4% of the population are formally skilled, the Finance Minister needs to substantially increase fund allocation to the sector to draw youth to the skilling programmes, NIIT suggests.

The company also says that the Finance Minister should spell out specific incentives and policy framework to boost the start-up sector by announcing tax rebate and allocating more funds for the development of the sector.