Friday, August 14, 2015

This education business

A number of people from my graduating class from B-School, myself included, are either considering doing something in the education space or have already dabbled in it - whether for commercial interest or for gratification.

The cost of real estate in India, whether you buy or lease, is a major hurdle to overcome when trying to go about the education business commercially.

The lack of an effective and meaningful feedback loop works against gratification. Speaking with a friend helped me gain clarity on why this can be disenchanting. There are three things at play.

First, the number of lives you can change is going to be a small percentage of the people you interact with. Not every child in your class is going to be transformed. a number of them have bigger issues to address; and a number of them simply do not care.

Second, the results of your work are not readily visible. Sometimes it can be decades before you can see the impact of your effort.

Third, you might never get to witness the impact. Very few of your students will find the opportunity or the willingness to come back to you to tell you that you made a difference.

Most of the time, you can only hope that your effort was not meaningless.