'I Believe In Sharing Wealth With Those Who Need It'

T V Mohandas Pai, Chairman, Manipal Global Education Services, is today a leading player in education as well as an investor. After a long and illustrious career with Infosys where he was CFO and later head of Human Resources, Education and Research, he co-founded Aarin Capital Partners in early 2012 to fund opportunities in healthcare, life sciences, education and technology-led businesses, as well as Exfinity Investment Managers in 2014 to launch Exfinity Technology Fund I and II. He also founded other funds to provide capital and operational support to technology companies with an India base or focus. Besides, he has been part of several high-powered government committees on higher education and taxation. He spoke to Divakar Prakash on the state of education in India, philanthropy and investing on the sidelines of the South Asian Diaspora Convention in Singapore recently. Edited excerpts:

No Indian institution features in Top 10 global rankings. Why is that so?
Not enough research is being done at Indian institutions. One of the major issues is the dearth of funding. This affects the research output. KMC, for example, is renowned not only in India but globally. Each institution in engineering, hospitality, medicine and communication has international collaboration with partner institutions and there is a great value delivered to our students who benefit from our quality services.

What do you have to say about the government’s role in education?
There is a lot of control from the government side. We have to take approvals from the government in terms of course structure and content. This affects the autonomy of institutions and hence the curriculum is not as pragmatic as compared to western institutions.

Is education your primary focus or are you planning to diversify?
Education is one of the areas of focus. We are into angel/series A investments through Aarin Capital and 10 other funds operating in various areas. Our investments is across technology, life sciences, edtech, fintech, agri tech, etc. We also have a small real estate fund in the family. Cumulatively, across all funds we have over 140 investments in startups amounting to over $325m.

You have won several awards for philanthropy? Could you please share your perspective?
I have been involved in the Akshaya Patra Mid-day Meal Programme as a founder. The objective of the programme is to give a hot unlimited mid-day meal every day to around five million children in government schools across India. Today, we feed about 1.5 million children every day, across 10,800 government schools in 11 states. I firmly believe in the notion of CSR and sharing wealth with those who need it. We can become better human beings by giving back to society.

Akshaya Patra started in 2000, it comprises volunteers from Iskcon Bangalore, and more than 50 public and private sector companies. Started with an initial funding of about Rs 30 lakh (in the form of donations from Pai, Abhay Jain, and P.N.C. Menon, founder, Sobha Group), Akshaya Patra has a team of 5,000 employees across the country. We have a donor base today of about 30,000 people and 100 private corporations. Ten per cent of donations come from the US and UK chapters of the foundation, while about 55 per cent of the budget comes through central and state government grants.

Tell us about Aarin Capital and the work it does...
We seek to create long-term value by partnering with talented, hungry management teams. Our objective is to build profitable companies with sustainable value propositions. We appreciate audacious ideas that enable disruptive, customer-focused technologies with the potential to address and transform large markets. We support our investee companies in generating profitable revenue growth, instituting strong compliance and governance processes, margin enhancement and active operational and strategic management.

Coming back to education, what are the gaps in our education system?
As mentioned earlier there has to be focus on the high research output which requires funding. The IITs or IIMs are government-funded and hence have managed to develop infrastructure initially. If you see the western model of education, be it Harvard or Stanford they are private institutions. Their tuition fee is very high but they offer quality education and are research focused. Their endowments are in billions of dollars. There enjoy a great level of autonomy in course structure. They are also allowed to make their curriculum to better meet the needs of students.

What are your views on entrepreneurship in India?
There is lot of potential in India. The only thing is that we need to nurture ideas so that they can develop to full potential through funding and mentorship. Flipkart, Snapdeal are good examples. Ideas and companies like Facebook need to come from India. There is a lot of government and private sector initiative to develop a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem.

How can we make our education system more efficient?
First, we need to reorient the expenditure on education for better outcome. The second important factor is the gross enrolment pattern (GEP) across states. The southern states have a better GER. .Focus must be on enhancing quality of education. The skills-based training needs to be enhanced. Third, there has to be an enhanced focus on better governance with education institutions having better autonomy -- academic, administrative and financial.

Fourth, there is low investment in physical infrastructure including real estate, quality of classrooms, library, hostels, sports facilities, furniture, transport, commercial building, etc.

Fifth, the student-teacher ratio in India is extremely high, which is a major challenge. It is about 11.6 in developed country as compared to about 23 per cent in India. It is also very important to train teachers to improve pedagogy.

Sixth, through the PPP model. Sixty-five per cent of university education is in private hands but they are inadequately funded. India needs a PPP model with large-scale scholarship programmes funded by government. And seventh, through accreditation quality standards and branding. India has a good accreditation system but it is largely input-based. We need to align these standards to global standards based on output. We need to make accreditation mandatory for institutions to get full autonomy so that there is increased accountability.

Any final recommendation for improving the education system?
There is a great deal of innovation required with focus on quality and at the same time making education more affordable with less intervention from government in course content.