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“If you break down the name into three pieces it’s a kids, zone, and India so this is what we combined it together” said Sudhir Kukreja, Co Founder, Credence International Schools at ArdorComm New Normal- Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2023” held in Pune, Maharashtra on 24th November 2023. We would like to know more about your organisation how are you expanding and what is your mission of expansion? I think the recent development that has happened in our group is the addition of the Kidzonia international preschools. Immediately after the pandemic, there was a significant need for some high-quality preschools. Because of the course aftermath, Kidzonia has taken a real challenge, I’ll say mandate to set up a chain of company-owned company-operative preschools. Very high-quality premium schools we have launched, about 27 branches in the last 2 years. All these branches are located across Mumbai, and Hyderabad and now we are launching 10 branches in Pune. In another one-two month you will start seeing the presence of Kidzonia in Pune. We already have a very strong presence in Navi Mumbai-Hyderabad where we are operating 12-13 branches each catering to almost 5000+ children. Along with it, we have started Credence International School in Hyderabad and we are now expanding with two more campuses in the coming year. They are already ready and on the verge of being launched and announced everything. So that’s been our journey I think the pandemic has been a blessing in disguise opening up the market for preschools and a lot of demand for the parents for some high-quality stuff. And that is what we identified as the market gap and maybe our group’s well-played store take care of it that is what we are trying to offer. As we know due to NEP now preschools is also coming under a formal structure how is this going to help your growing organisation I think NEP is actually a blessing for us why it is a blessing for us because if you look at the history of India for last 60 years we have never had education in a space or early child education in a space where it had a formal structure where it had a kind of controller or a just like you have a CBSE or NCERT or government of India intervention so this was the first time where nep is actually going to governed the working and functioning of preschools there are going to be guidelines just the way you have for a high school and CBSE affiliation guidelines etc there are going to be guidelines and certain rules to be followed when they are working in schools now in preschools entire thing gets ruled out lets understand their two kind of preschools in the industry people who are doing the best in the industry and the people who are not doing the best and industry people who are taking care of the needs of the children people who are absolutely thoughtful and careful about the what is going what is that child development needs are and what needs to be done if you come to Kidzonia preschool today right from the child safety to his development needs to his psychological emotional development each of these expect is very finally taken care of and this is something which we have working on I wouldn’t say maybe your after any PS coming this it’s a part of our credence International School right from our Inception days in 2012 and today I Think what we have done is we have taken that same standard to a preschool level we probably have a lot to offer to the industry and maybe anybody in the industry wants to come and exchange that knowledge with us we are more than happy to partner. So when the NEP gets rolled out, we will be the best place for people in the industry to kind of show the way around that okay this is what and how it needs to be done. We have done our own research with a lot of industry. Witness people who are a part of our core team, our corporate design team, the curriculum design team, the interior, and everything that’s done there is a lot of thought that has gone into designing and creating and that is the reason the idea of the company-owned company-operated because the moment you start franchising it get because you can’t pass on that same thing to a Thousand partners. That is the reason we are concentrated in Mumbai, Pune, and Hyderabad we will definitely expand to a different city, it takes time to sweat out over time to get what you intend to do. What is the exact meaning of the word Kidzonia? So if you break down the name into three pieces it’s a kids, zone, and India so this is what we combined it together. It’s a kids zone to have their own life, have their own fun, have their own journey of learning and fun. It’s more often an experiential world for a child so it is way away from the theoretical aspect of it. The way you are doing some root learning or making the children write and stuff like that. It’s about giving a child experience while in his early years of development. We have heard of those development theories and then multiply intelligence but if you take a look of the best of the brands in the industry today while we talk about it a lot. When it comes to the floor of the ground how much intelligence are we talking about in this conference? We are talking about multiple Intelligences and that kind of thing how many preschools have a television in every class? How many teachers are trained on how to handle the audiovisuals and make the children learn from the audiovisuals? We have made it a part of it, We have always said that okay, screen time is

“Ed-tech is very much welcome and we are looking for some wonderful support” said Dr. Ganesh Rao, Director, Pune Business School at ArdorComm New Normal- Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2023” held in Pune, Maharashtra on 24th November 2023. Any Ed-tech initiative that you have implemented in your organization and how it helped the teacher and the students? We have LMS in place so that’s one of the initiatives that we are having and it has become more important after the pandemic. Also, it has created a system of education, everything was at the discretion of the faculty now everything can be monitored very closely by the head of the institution. Similarly in admissions, Ed-tech is very much welcome and we are looking for some wonderful support on that because in admissions we are trying to reach a larger audience and our trust has started a very good University called the Pimpri-Chinchwad University with an ambition to serve thousands of students so definitely this kind of Ed-tech can help us reach a larger audience in the shortest span of time and more effectively Any initiative that you took for the corporate engagement? As far as corporate engagement is concerned we have started a master class series. This master class series is the series of corporate executives talking about emerging areas and the jobs of the future. So, we got this corporate executive, and when they talk the students listen. Even in PGDM courses, we have our academic faculty but more importantly days we are laying a lot of stress on corporate faculties or corporate professors, and a number of these people come from time to time and teach master classes. We have it on YouTube, it’s a way to reach a larger audience and we will very much encourage and appreciate the collaboration with your company in which we can take this master class forward to a larger audience in which you can give information about the emerging area or on a neutral perform. Are there any programs for entrepreneurship at your campus? We have tied up with an entrepreneur network now. This network comprises about 1500 entrepreneurs and they visit from time to time and conduct events. Now these events comprise only the start-ups. Now, start-ups are not only about technology, the non-tech start-ups are also very important because we are a country of 140 crores population, where 100 crore are in not-so-urban areas. We have to come into development so it’s not just tech-entrepreneurship it’s important we need basic industries and basic services so we need to encourage this kind of entrepreneurs rather than making it fashionable to stock off tech-start-ups. Non-tech start-ups are also very important. This entrepreneur network is encouraging this type of start-ups because every time we can’t be like the Westerns facing changing Angel investors even in our community, for example in Rajasthan or Gujarat everybody’s pooling into money. We need not follow one hundred percent of the model What west is saying is if you search internally you get everything in place you need to have confidence in them and propagate these values further. We are celebrating our second anniversary this year, any message you wish to share? Fantastic event today I saw a great gathering of people all-star of education and also a lot of companies who are displaying their products now I would request everybody to pay some attention to these wonderful young people who have made a lot of effort in developing these products now they may see all similar but they are unique in their ways and I would request that someday we need to get started with this earlier the better that we start with this companies and collaborate with them because in this way we can be more efficient and use the technology more efficiently I also find these people quite intelligent because started by their generation have better connect I’m sure that this would go in a long way and helping strengthening and develop the education fraternity of our country