Field research suggests that there is a great deal of pressure to make basic school supplies are as inexpensive as possible, given current resources. This usually involves reused and inexpensive materials. Furthermore, only a few different types of supplies are used by a large number of students and schools in India.

A basic list follows along with their current costs (in Rupees and Dollars):

Uniforms - Rs300/year x 2 pairs ≈ $12

Through 6th standard:

Textbooks: 6 subjects x Rs40-50 ea (≈ $1 ea)

Notebooks: 6 subjects + 1 classnotes + 1 home + 1 drafting x Rs10 ea (≈ ¢20 ea)

7th - 10th Standard:
Textbooks: 6 subjects x Rs40-50 ea (≈ $1 ea)

Notebooks: 6 subjects + 1 classnotes + 1 home + 1 drafting x Rs10 ea (≈ ¢20 ea)

Guidebooks x 5 subjects (math excluded) x Rs40 ea (≈ ¢80 ea)

Pens x Rs4 ea (≈ ¢.08 ea) x 12 mo

Pencils x Rs2 ea (≈ ¢.04 ea) x 12 mo

Compass box Rs20-45 (≈ ¢40-90 ea)

Eraser Rs1 ea (≈ ¢.02 ea)

Total costs ≈ Rs1000 ($20) / year

Consider This: In the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet Union provided low-to-no cost educational materials to schools and markets in India. This included physical materials (e.g. textbooks) as well as additional content-based materials that were then freely copied as educational resources. While some misinformation made its way into these resources, they also provided a significant base for learning – the effects of which continue to permeate even today.

The difference today is that digital means of transmission are available while "cut-and-paste" is even more accessible for content amplification. What the students need is a service for getting high-quality content into the hands of textbook makers and teachers for free.

Here's a source for free content: http://www.oercommons.org/


Translation and localization is still a major hurdle. Currently English to Telugu, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, etc translation rates run at about ¢10/word (Rs 5). For a 350 page book with 150 words/page that's 52k words which would roughly cost $5000. Assuming a Rs10 service fee per book produced, that would mean that about 26k books would need to be sold to cover the costs of translation.

Models to draw from include:
"Keep the Change" http://www.ideo.com/work/featured/bofa

and
the "One-for-One" concept http://tinyurl.com/24lf5m9


Building on One-for-One, what if an organization like Amazon provided an opportunity to 'round up' on purchases -or- through the cooperation of the publisher, provided mirrored content free of charge online.

For many textbooks, content is already online, but the difficult challenge is to provide a model for translation services that make content more accessible.