Shashank Shah, director (senior specialist – Viksit Bharat perspective planning & visioning) at India’s NITI Aayog, posed a powerful question to global stakeholders gathered at The PIE Live India conference: “If not India, then where?”
Drawing on his expertise at India’s premier policy think tank – an organisation that is chaired by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi – the public policy specialist underscored not just the vast opportunities unfolding in the country but also the bold ambition driving its growth.
“Over the next century, India is going to grow eight times what it is today. The vision is to be a USD$30 trillion economy. That means that 80% of India that we’ll see in 2047 will be built in the next quarter century,” he told attendees at the Delhi conference.
“What we are seeing is 20% of what India will be in 2047.”
With two-thirds of its 1.5 billion people expected to be in the working-age group by then, this demographic shift offers India a “significant advantage”.
What we are seeing is 20% of what India will be in 2047
Shashank Shah, NITI Aayog
What’s more, Shah explained that some 1 billion people in India will belong to the middle class.
“No organisation in the world can ignore that Indian market,” said Shah. As this demographic expands, understanding the market and its complexities will become increasingly crucial for major players.
Elsewhere, India’s startup ambition is poised to play a pivotal role in establishing the country as a global hub for talent, innovation, and entrepreneurship “in a very big way”, Shah explained.
“We are today the third largest start-up ecosystem in the world, with nearly 150,000 start-ups and 100+ unicorns. This is probably just the beginning, because this entire journey has started in the last 7-8 years. And the growth is going to be phenomenal in the next 20-25 years.
“If 5% of Indian students opt for entrepreneurship and if 90% of them fail – which is what the usual number is – the remaining start-ups will be able to create 5 million direct and indirect jobs every year in India,” he explained.
As India’s National Education Policy takes effect, India’s growth will also extend to the higher education sector, with Shah highlighting that India is on track to become the world’s largest higher education ecosystem by 2035, with over 90 million students – surpassing the current population of Germany.
“The learnings of the world will now happen in the Global South and in the emerging nations, because that’s where the real action is coming,” said Shah.
Access, quality and future readiness should be at the heart of India’s higher education goals, he explained, noting that state public universities account for almost 80% of student enrolment across all higher education institutions – some 495 state public universities accounting for 32.5 million students.
Looking ahead, these institutions are poised to focus on how they can continue to provide access – which they have done very well – to moving towards increased quality and future-readiness, he noted.
As highlighted in many conversations at the event, transnational education is poised to play a significant role in the growth of India’s higher education landscape.
Sagar Bahadur, executive director of India and South Asia, Acumen, Part of Sannam S4 Group highlighted a shift in conversations in recent years: “What’s different from the last two years is that earlier we were convincing international institutions to come to India, but now the conversation has shifted to how and when they can come.”
International institutions are queueing up to set up branch campuses in India’s GIFT City, while others are opting to set up outside of India’s special economic zone.
