Interviews

“If student is happy they will be very responsible citizens and give their 100% in everything” said Seema Singh, Director, Florescent Public School, Ahmedabad at ArdorComm Media Group hosted ‘New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2024’ on 10th February 2024 at Crowne Plaza Ahmedabad City Centre, Ahmedabad, Gujarat. How does the New Education Policy impact the overall growth in the education system in terms of technology? Nowadays, technology is a great aspect, we need to introduce technology in school at all levels, be it is primary, secondary, senior secondary, college or university. Just now we discussed in our panel that how we have to take the initiative. So, we need to be aware that we have more and more parents association with us. We need to have a good infrastructure, we need to have some partner with us who can fund for the technology, and in this way, we can train our teachers as well as students to accept the new technology and use it for positively for teaching-learning process. 5 years from now how technology will eventually impact the education system of India? 100% it will bring modernization, this is the era of globalization, this is the era modernization, So, 100% to bring changes. AI cannot replace the teachers, of course. But AI can develop the teaching-learning process in such a way that the teachers and students learn more advanced. What was the overall takeaway from this event? The happiness that we need to create in the minds of students. If student is happy they will be very responsible citizens and give their 100% in everything. So, my takeaway is to how we can make our education system fruitful so that our students when they go home, they are happy and we can create a happy and safe environment all over. Any message you wish to share with ArdorComm media on its second anniversary I will just appreciate ArdorComm media that this platform is because of them. When we talk about little transformation, I got connected with ArdorComm media, with Chandan sir only via this digital platform. So, they are doing excellent and we hope that we have this association for a longer time.  

“Polytechnic has reached from 50% to 85% in Maharashtra and the number of the figure in engineering education has these two around 1.17 lakh in this academic year” said Dr. D. V. Jadhav, Joint Director, Technical Education, Regional Office, Pune, Govt. of Maharashtra at ArdorComm New Normal- Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2023” held in Pune, Maharashtra on 24th November 2023. Kindly highlight few initiatives under your leadership and by the department in the field of Technical Education. Hon’ble Director Dr. Vinod Mohitkar has initiated many initiatives especially to promote technical education, the opportunities for the students for technical education, the government scheme for peace reimbursement, even the admission procedure so that maximum students can benefit from this one and the outcome of this mission in polytechnic and engineering colleges. Polytechnic has reached from 50% to 85% in Maharashtra and the number of the figure in engineering education admission has these two around 1.17 lakh in this academic year. Apart from that the skilling initiative we are taking that DT has made the MoU with Infosys, they offered the free program on springboard platform for the skill-based learning. Also, through CSR funds Infosys goes through the foundation 176 hours program, offered to the students for skilling and values. Nasscom is also offering a program for skill education to the students of Maharashtra and Technical Education where the students do have not to pay any charges for that they have to learn the online way and we are trying for this so that students’ employability will be enhanced through this. Apart from that the government has many initiatives for fees reimbursement through the Central Government and State Government and all these schemes are available DVT portals the student can directly apply and get the benefits. When it comes to the implementation of the NEP, What initiative you are taking? What message you would like to give to the academicians and educators? Maharashtra has become the first state in the country to implement the New Education Policy (NEP) curriculum in engineering education. We have taken the advantage of AICTE credit framework and issued the guideline in terms of GR and around 59 autonomous college in Maharashtra has started implementing autonomous curriculum from the academic year 2023-24 and all affiliated colleges or universities will be implementing from the next academic year. We have conducted workshops for all the stakeholders, and feedback was taken, accordingly, the guidelines were taken. You witnessed the summit, where the representation was from the government, academicians, educators & the corporate, how does such forums help us to engage better & learn more? See corporate is one of the major stakeholders what are their expectations and what is today’s curriculum if there is a gap that has to be bridged. Corporates can give feedback to the university and autonomous colleges. Apart from that some Institute may have one practice some may not have so this is a platform for sharing their best practices. We expect that policyholders and decision-makers can frame the policy. Such a platform for exchanging thoughts and coming up with a better policy and better implementation and expecting even the revised outcome that if any lack is observed that can be care taken. This is a platform for that so I congratulate the team of ArdorComm for having this initiative bringing all these on one platform for one complete day for exchanging ideas.

“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