BIG BUSINESSES are pushing school privatisation in Hyderabad in “flagrant violation” of Indian education law, teachers warned yesterday.

Union federation Education International (EI) warned that transnational companies such as Pearson and Bridge International Academies were ramping up their takeover of schools for the poor.

A report for the federation shows that more than 50 per cent of children are now enrolled in private schools in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states, while in their shared capital city Hyderabad the figure is over 80 per cent.

EI said Hyderabad has become a “laboratory for global edu-business,” with 1,300 “low-fee” private schools clustered in and around Hyderabad’s Old City district.

The low-fee private schools operate out of residential buildings, with untrained, low-paid teachers giving scripted lessons.

The edu-businesses are being supported by the World Bank, Britain’s Department for International Development and a trio of IT tycoons — Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg and Michael Dell — through their ostensibly charitable trusts.

Along with venture capital firms such as Gray Ghost, they offer school proprietors high-interest loans to scale up and start-up funds to set up franchises and create profit-making private schools.

They are looking for models that are easily “scalable” to much larger operations, said the report by Sangeeta Kamat from the University of Massachusetts, Carol Anne Spreen from New York University and Indivar Jonnalagadda of the Hyderabad Urban Lab.

With almost 70 per cent of Indians living on less than £1.50 a day — and more than two-fifths on less than £1 — EI said the push toward private schools for the poor is a matter of serious concern.

And India only spends 3.8 per cent of GDP on education — well below the 6 per cent goal set by Unesco.

EI project director Angelo Gavrielatos warned: “The commercialisation of education is in flagrant violation of India’s Right to Education Act, and will deepen inequality and undermine an already ailing education system.”

The model has already been applied in Kenya, Liberia and Uganda, where in May BIA harassed EI researcher Curtis Riep and had him arrested on spurious charges.