For most of us who've covered, read or even taken a passing interest in India's schooling sector, the debacle of Educomp's "smart classrooms" is still a searing heartburn. In fact, most public companies in school education have been stock market duds; investor sentiment in the sector, with the exception of a handful of school-based businesses, has flatlined.
Or should I say, had.
Two Gentlemen Sumeet Mehta & Smita Deorah are a charismatic duo who started LEAD with one model school some 35 kilometres outside of Ahmedabad.
Over the last decade, LEAD's brand has leapt out of the confines of just one school and become a brand to reckon with in India's vast and crucial affordable private school (APS) sector. Deorah and Mehta want LEAD to be the bonafide brand among APSes—a differentiating factor that would push parents to choose a LEAD school over any other.
The new school management brands like LEAD have also learned from Educomp's cardinal sin—you can't just stick a smart screen in a class and expect students to learn. That's why LEAD has a complete digital package—for the school, the classroom, and even parents.
The brand, though, needs to be stretched out over a variety of different schools, teachers who aren't tech-savvy, and parents who, ultimately, have to pay for the brand value. Will LEAD thrive in the chaos of the Indian education system? Or is its school-in-a-box solution too tightly wound? Review it In today's article...