Social Issue

India is the largest education market in the world with over 400 million children but it is estimated that over 30% of school-aged children are not enrolled in any school at all and around 30% attend private schools. Public schools tend to be overcrowded, understaffed, and suffer high levels of teacher absenteeism. Parents from lower-income families are willing to invest their limited incomes into private education due to these problems in the state sector.

Our Response

Indian School Finance Company Limited (ISFC) focuses on providing loans to the school segment in India. It started operating in 2009 from Hyderabad and now is present in six states and 17 locations focusing on low-income neighbourhoods and slums.  It concentrates on providing financing for the building of new classrooms, bathrooms, and other improvements. In addition, it also extends advisory services and training to their portfolio of affordable schools.

ISFC also works in parallel with Gray Capital Matters, a foundation providing advisory services to ISFC’s portfolio of schools whereby its primary service is a school ranking system that can be used by parents and other stakeholders to assess the quality of the schools and is also used to advise schools on any gaps and areas of improvement.

Expected Social Impact

ISFC has ambitious plans to grow their loan book over the next four years and to expand its client base to close to 4,000 schools and enable them to improve and expand their installations.  We calculate that the impact directly attributable to Netri’s investment will be benefitting over 30,000 students in receiving a better quality education.