2021

Ajay Gupta is a serial entrepreneur having 34 years of business experience in diverse segments like Education, Edtech, Retail, Healthcare and Multimedia. He is the Founder CEO of leading educational brands—Bachpan play school (in the pre-primary segment having 1200 schools PAN India) and Academic Heights Public School (in the formal school segment having 110 schools PAN India). Interestingly, they don’t have their own play and formal school as they work on FOFO (Franchise owned Franchise Operated) Model. He is also the co-founder of Rishihood University at Sonepat Delhi NCR. He has created a technical arm-Prismart that meets 21st century educational and edutainment needs of children in K-12 segment with digital home and classroom-based learning solutions. Apart from this, he is also a Business Coach and Writer by passion.   What are the steps your schools are taking to complement NEP 2020? To complement NEP 2020, Academic Heights Public Schools (AHPS) are taking steps like designing curricular and pedagogical structure as (5+3+3+4) for replacing 10+2 system; introduction of vocational education; Reforms in our existing assessment system; building equitable and inclusive education for socially and economically disadvantaged segments; Teacher training programs so that teaching and learning involves multilingualism (relatable language of instruction i.e. mother tongue/regional language) and teachers learn new ways of building foundational literacy and numeracy in children. Additionally, we are planning to add Grade 1 and 2 in Bachpan schools by mapping curriculum and associating them with formal schools.   What are the changes, do you think have taken place on the academic and operational side of school after the pandemic? After the pandemic, our teachers, students and administrative staff are more prepared and feel empowered. We have recommended our Bachpan and Academic Heights Public Schools to accept the new Phygital (physical +digital) world and they continue to evolve and adapt with change. We strongly believe that technology is the future and operations must involve digital component wherever feasible. In academics ratio of 80-20 can work for digital and physical schooling.  In administration, increasing role of Enterprise resource software (ERP) and digital safety tools in security have made operations easier with combination of manpower and technology to the tune of 50-50.   What are the benefits of digital media during online classes? Digital media has undoubtedly empowered and facilitated our school leaders to provide uninterrupted learning to our students through online classes. Teaching and learning has become more interactive on digital platforms and given easy-to-use tools to engage students for their holistic development. Flexibility of these modes enable teachers to impart structured and integrated learning experience, share subject related videos, day-to-day assignments and projects. Digital media is not only a bridge between teacher and learner but also a great source of information and edutainment. Students feel free to discuss queries in the class and able to openly interact with teacher.   What initiatives did your prestigious schools carry out to enhance teaching training to deal with learning in the new normal? Bachpan and Academic Heights Public School time to time organize online and offline teacher training programs to create awareness and give them new insights on the new normal. After pandemic, these knowledge sessions have transformed in webinars and online workshops to groom teachers on latest in education with technology. We believe in futuristic education and conduct these trainings in association with leading academicians, subject matter experts and educationists. Teachers get the required academic guidance and are encouraged to participate and discuss the challenges faced in teaching and learning process, prepared to conduct online events and workshops for parents confidently. What are the long-term objectives that you have planned for your schools? Our long term objectives include good quality education and holistic development of children. At Bachpan, all efforts aim at children’s physical growth, mental development and making them formal school ready with technology in education. However, in AHPS, larger vision is to teach life (providing experiential learning, teaching values, life skills and providing platform to showcase talent) to students and make them future ready before they step in the university segment. Traditionally career goals were made after class 12th or even after pressure from peers & family. We have bigger responsibility to help our students in filtering their early career goals.

We have a very different pedagogy in terms of teaching the students says Dr. Bidyanand Jha, Acting Director, Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies, Pune in an interview with Pratik Ghosh, ArdorComm Media Group. What does the word New Normal mean to you? I feel new normal is a word which is coined for the covid situation but then I feel its always a normal situation. Now the technology is helping the organizations to make the physical as normal. After sometime you will find that it will be a hybrid model and people will talk about everything normalized. It was sudden jerk to the people that is why we call it new normal because we are not habituated of that certain jerk. When the pandemic hit the world how did your institution adapt to the situation and acted to impart education? We are basically belonging to Kirloskar Group of Organizations so we are very fast is adapting technology and we are a part of legacy and we have a good infrastructure with us. Specially we have a very different pedagogy in terms of teaching the student and we have been collaborating with lot of companies for giving the students the best experience of the learning for management program. However, we were already using certain technologies while we were interacting with the students, while they were on field for some research projects or some projects but when covid came, we were not mentally prepared of the fact that this will only become the source for engaging with the student but we did fairly good job in terms of hiring some technologies and installing some of the technologies to make it a better experience for the students.

We have been getting the best of educationists on our campus virtually and this is an opportunity to collaborate, that’s what Symbiosis is all about says Dr. Sammita Jadhav, Deputy Director, Symbiosis Institute of Health Sciences Pune in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group. What’s your take on the new normal and how did your Institute adapt to the new normal education? New normal has come up with a New education policy that is what we welcome. We welcome Prime Minister’s vision to establish this in this particular time when India is going through such a turmoil, specially the youngsters that have participated in education at a very early age and they have really not been able to meet each other. However, at Symbiosis Institute of Health Sciences and Symbiosis International University we have been getting students virtually, long before the other universities had. We have developed a faculty development program which is very intense, all the faculties have undergone this even before the students were taught about how virtual classrooms are. I think it is only because of this that students have meet. In fact, at this point of time we are getting to meet people out of India, educationists out of India. We have been getting the best of educationists on our campus virtually and this is an opportunity to collaborate, that’s what Symbiosis is all about. How does such kind of education forums and gatherings help academicians and educators? This is a wonderful opportunity, this is the first time in fact where educationists are meeting face to face after a long time. The collaboration really happens out of the classrooms, out of the board rooms and in between conference bytes. So, this is a very good opportunity for all the academicians and educators.

We could not think that a three-year-old could probably learn from a screen says Sneha Rathor, CEO, Sanfort Group of Schools in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group. How do you perceive the word new normal as? I think off course after the pandemic new normal is going to be, like we talk about blended learning, talk about bringing more innovation in the classroom and we talk about that the learning would never stop no matter what comes our way in the future. Earlier we used to always say that technology is going to come in the classroom but we as human beings were not able to adapt to it but thanks to covid because of which all of us were forced to adapt the technology and finally full fledgedly every teacher and every child is now very much a technology prone person and that’s going to be the future of education, that’s going to be a new way for learning which is going to make the children great leaders also and great innovators also. As you are seeing that the situation was not favorable especially for the pre-schools and the schools during this time, under your leadership how did you took this as a challenge and sailed off? When the pandemic hit, just like anybody else we were also taken aback because in K-12s we were of course very prompt to start classes because the teachers were technology prone and the children were also able to adapt technology. But specially for the preschoolers, for the younger kind it was a big challenge for us how to continue the education. We could not think that a three-year-old could probably learn from a screen, but yes as a brand as a leading brand of India, Sanfort took this courage of putting everything online so probably within 20 days we made all our pre-schools around India to online mode. We had our own app, we had also recorded the sessions so that children who are not able to attend classes due to their parent’s busy schedule, they can see the recorded sessions also. So, in whatever way that we could go online we tried everything and it turned out to be really well, I’m really proud that the parents really appreciated the school’s effort.

My vision is to educate each and every child and empower children with the right skill so that they would be employable after completing their education says Dr. S. K. Rathore, Founder, Chairman & MD Sanfort Group of Schools in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group. What does the word new normal stands for you? For me, new normal is we need to do each and every thing now physically by following all the covid protocols. Under your leadership how is your group of schools growing, what is the vision statement and post pandemic how are you prepared for this? The journey of Santfort rather I can say the foundation of this venture was done more than 21 years back by my wife, Kavita Rathore. I joined her later so I am with her in this venture for more than 11 years now. She was running two schools and I expanded it to more than 250 schools. So, my vision is that every child in the country whether he or she is from the socially week background or from the village or from anywhere, that child has the right for the quality education. My vision is to reach out to those people, reach out to small villages, cities and everywhere. I want to share I have a branch of my school in a very small village, its just 100 km from Delhi itself and I tell you the kind of response we are getting in that school is much higher than the response we are getting from other schools in Delhi. So, peoples in villages are also willing to send their children to good school for good education but they don’t have that opportunity in their neighborhood. So, my vision is to educate each and every child and empower children with the right skill so that they would be employable after completing their education. When people were not moving out and the pre-schools were closing up, any special initiative which Sanfort is taking? I’m happy to share that Sanfort was the first pre-school to start virtual classes. We started our session well on time, 1st week of April 2020, all of my schools started their session on virtual platform. When the pandemic started and lockdown was announced, no pre-school in the country was having that kind of setup to conduct the classes and no teacher in any pre-school were trained to deliver classes on virtual platforms. Hatsoff to all the teachers, not only the teachers of Santfort, teachers of all the schools across the country, across the world who made it possible to deliver quality education to the children sitting at home because of this pandemic. I believe we have been prepared now for any kind of challenge and this everybody has seen all the people in the country can face any challenge whether it is covid or anything else. How does such kind of gathering, physical event help the academicians and educators where we see the government, corporate and education fraternity all together? The difference which is there on the virtual webinars or seminars and conferences is when you invited me on your webinars there was a point to point discussion. There is no out of the window discussion which is happening, so whatever question is asked on the screen we educators or education leaders have to answer that but there a lot of things to share in between out of the window. So, in this kind of events, physical conferences, we people from the different groups sit together and share knowledge, share what we’ve done, what we are planning and that benefits all of us.