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Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
Aravind has had enough.
For five painful hours, he is testing to do something elementary: pay his teachers. Parents have already transferred the fees. The money sits neatly in the not-for-profit trust that holds the school’s recognition. And yet Aravind, who runs a 2,000-student private school on the outskirts of Hyderabad, cannot simply click “transfer” and relocate on. He questions to be identified only by his first name.
Every rupee that leaves the account must be defensible on paper. Salaries are routed as lease payments to a land-owning entity and as service fees to an operating company. Each transaction is vetted by his chartered accountant, ensuring no regulator can later accapply the school of creating a profit—before it has even run payroll.
By evening, Aravind has cycled between his CA, his bank’s relationship manager and his principal often enough to trigger a migraine. He misses his thirteen-year-old’s Bharatanatyam recital.
This is the part of Indian schooling that never creates it into glossy brochures. On paper, most private schools must be run by not-for-profit entities: trusts, societies, or Section 8 companies.
“You’re running a large institution,” Aravind declares, exasperated, “but you have to behave like you’re not.”
For years, this contradiction has been accepted as the price of operating in Indian education. The central government’s position has been clear. Schools must view like charities, not companies, and any explicit profit motive is viewed with suspicion. The moral frame of the Right to Education Act—education as a public good—has shaped both regulation and rhetoric.
That stance, however, may be softening.
People involved in recent policy discussions declare the Centre is launchning to question what the current structure actually achieves. For school owners, it’s a massive hindrance to productivity and ease of doing business.
(The Ken has previously reported on how private-equity money has entered Indian schooling through legal contortions, often resulting in tighter budreceives, tinyer salary hikes, and shrinking enrolments.)
Now, The Ken has learnt that the government is holding more conversations around an idea that would have been politically radioactive until recently: creating a formal pathway for private schools to operate for profit, paired with clearer governance norms and greater operational autonomy.
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