India will on Thursday take up the leadership of a group of nine of the world's most populous developing countries in creating a common blueprint for a fresh thrust to achieve universal education. The E-9 consisting of India, China, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Egypt is meeting on November 8-9 in New Delhi and is likely to break from a policy of looking to the West for policy prescriptions on education. Together, these nine countries are home to over 60% of the world's population — and over 70% of all adult illiterates. The E-9 was launched in 1993.

“India, Brazil and China are no longer what they were in 1993,” a senior government official closely involved with the E-9 meet said. “There is a growing recognition that we have enough models among ourselves to study, adopt and follow.” India will head the e-9 for the next two years.

One of the success models India and the remaining E-9 countries will closely study is Shanghai's emergence at the top of the ranks in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted by the OECD. India ranked second from the bottom among all countries that participated in the test.