Kerawalla accuses Ashar of selling him a plagiarized curriculum and alleges deficiency in the supply of services including teacher training, and a general ignorance of rules such as how to set up a school that can earn an ICSE (Indian Certificate of Secondary Education) affiliation.
“A lot of things went wrong,” said Kerawalla, who owned and managed three schools with Ashar providing the academic support and brand name. Kerawalla, a hotelier who now runs four schools independently, is in arbitration proceedings with Ashar. Both sides have claimed damages.
Ashar refutes the allegations, saying that the company has its own team of over 50 people working on curriculum development and adds that these issues have been sorted out. She says she’s learnt from the experience and moved on.
World of movies, malls
Education experts have more fundamental problems with elite schools such as the ones promoted by Ashar as well as the parents who send their children there.
“I call these parents the progeny-exporting community,” said Yash Pal, a professor and astrophysicist, who contributed to the preparation of a report that set in motion a revamp of school curriculum by the National Council of Educational Research and Training in 2005.
Elite schools “distance education from what is outside, never entangling with real issues and problems,” Yash Pal said. “They encourage kids to remain in a make-believe world of movies and malls.”
Ashar has plans that may appease critics. She recently hired a chief executive, former World Health Organization consultant Paul Solomon, to steer the company and is set to start a new project called Brainworks that will open no-frills schools teaching children from middle-income classes the same course material as at its more elite affiliates.
Brainworks is targeting a segment of the population that wants good education for their children but finds cost a limiting factor, according to Ashar.
Fees for the Brainworks pre-school, which includes a creche facility, will range from Rs18,000-30,000 per year (depending on the real estate cost in the area) and will cater to children in the age group of newborns to six years. At the lower end, the new schools will charge Rs1,500 a month, still a lot by Indian standards, but more parents will be able to afford this fee.
And Kangaroo Kids is experimenting with a different strategy to expand. It will no longer award franchises and will only enter joint ventures that will be partly funded by Kangaroo Kids, ensuring the company has a say in the running of each school that uses its name and stricter controls on the quality of education imparted there.
“You cannot have a McDonaldization of education,” says Ashar.
jeetha.d@livemint.com