By:  Tarandeep Singh Sekhon, Chief Business Officer, KidZania India.

“India‘s edutainment market is scaling toward INR 465 billion by 2030, and experiential learning has moved from being a nice-to-have to a must-have. When graduate employability sits at 54.81%, the government’s INR 1,28,650 crore education budget sends a clear message: skills aren’t taught in classrooms, they’re built through experience.

We’ve spent a decade at KidZania proving this works. Kids who engage in real-world role-play come out with genuine career confidence and employment readiness. But here’s the challenge: private sector innovation in immersive learning keeps hitting the same walls, constraints due to current GST classifications and infrastructure gaps that make scaling difficult.

The 2026 Budget is the moment to fix this. Reclassify experiential learning platforms as GST-exempt, enable public-private partnerships for skill centers in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, and tie government incentives to actual employment outcomes. These are practical steps to make experiential learning the backbone of India‘s education system, not a premium add-on.

We have 250 million students and a closing window. The infrastructure we build now determines whether India becomes job-ready or skills-constrained.”