Infosys billionaire Narayana Murthy calls for $20 billion plan to train India's teachers

Infosys Ltd. co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy has called on India to spend $20 billion over two decades on a nationwide teacher training program, saying the country must create inventions rather than adopt those developed elsewhere.

Murthy, one of India's best-known technology billionaires, proposed setting up 2,500 "train the teacher" colleges across the country, staffed by retired science, technology, engineering and mathematics teachers. The colleges would prepare 500,000 schoolteachers a year.

He made the case on Nov. 12 in a recorded address to the winners of the Infosys Prize, the annual science and research awards run by the Infosys Science Foundation in Bengaluru. He said Indian schools must teach students independent, critical and analytical thinking, and called for more respect and better pay for teachers and researchers.

A plan he has pushed before

Murthy first laid out the plan in November 2023, at the announcement of that year's Infosys Prize winners. He proposed inviting 10,000 accomplished retired STEM teachers from India and developed countries to run the colleges across India's 28 states and eight union territories, at a cost of about $100,000 a year for each teacher.

Under that model, each group of four trainers would train 100 primary and 100 secondary schoolteachers a year, producing 250,000 of each annually. The trained teachers could in turn become trainers. Murthy put the cost at about $1 billion a year, or $20 billion over the 20-year program, and said it would not be a heavy burden for a country aiming for a $5 trillion economy.

He also said on Nov. 12 that India remains at an early stage in most areas of public governance, despite progress in research.

From Infosys to education

Murthy, 80, co-founded Infosys in 1981 with six colleagues and built it into one of India's largest information technology services companies, which helped make Bengaluru a global outsourcing hub. He served as chief executive and later as chairman.

The Infosys Science Foundation, which Infosys and its founders set up, has awarded the Infosys Prize since 2009 to honor research by scientists and scholars working in India. Forbes ranks Murthy among India's billionaires.