Giving Compass' Take:

• The author explains the importance of scaling social innovation in India, focusing on key expectations of educational NGOs, examining why they must demonstrate impact, cost-effectiveness and work within the existing system in order to be scalable. 

• Why is scale important in terms of social impact? Why is it important for NGOs to measure their cost-effectiveness and how they work in an existing system?

• Check out the Bridgespan Group's recommended reading list about how to scale social change. 

India is reported to have approximately 15 million NGOs in the education sector. Combined with the proliferation of social enterprises in recent years, the space for non-government education innovations is rapidly becoming a network of cottage industries; interventions are often reinventing the wheel and successful practices are not being appropriately leveraged to address India’s learning crisis at scale.

Over the past year, however, India’s Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has invested significant effort to identify NGO-led innovations around the country and create platforms for them to present to and engage with state education departments.

But, while a government leader’s backing is crucial, scaling is a complex undertaking that comes with fundamental questions, and the need to recognize that not all innovations are necessarily scalable. Through a study of a number of educational innovations, a few factors critical for innovations to be scalable include—demonstrated impact, cost-effectiveness, and the ability to work with the existing system.

At the outset though, the definition of “scaling” itself must be clarified. The Millions Learning report, studying a multitude of case studies from around the world, concludes that the process of scale requires that a balance be struck between the non-negotiable elements that are imperative to the success of a program and must be replicated, and the other elements that can be adapted per the specific requirements of individual contexts.

Apart from delivering impact, for a country like India, models that seek to scale must also do so in a cost-effective manner.

In a similar vein, models that are able to scale must be able to operate within the constraints of the existing system, with the current set of teachers, school leadership, and government machinery.

Read the full article about scaling innovation in India by Rohan Sandhu at avpn