ANAND SUDARSHAN
Managing director & CEO, Manipal Education Group

Where would you place education on your national list of priorities?
Right at the top, together with food security, energy self-sufficiency and environmental security. Education is core to what the nation truly needs: vibrant and thriving human capital.

How best to mend government schools?
Government’s role should be to set long-term vision and direction; institute policies; provide a fair and implementable legal framework; mandate regulation and provide all support to individuals.  A committed and accountable private sector should be encouraged to operate schools, colleges, universities and other educational institutions.

Education thinker/philosopher you admire most.
Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, and Prof. Derek Bok. Dr. Radhakrishnan for his erudition and contextualisation of eastern and western philosophies. Prof. Bok for stimulating thinking about the structure and operation of universities.

Your favourite Nobel laureate.
The one the Nobel committee forgot: Mahatma Gandhi.

Your leadership style.
Imagination and communication-based, accountable for results and people oriented.

Your favourite book on leadership.
Execution by Bossidy and Charan; The Mahabharata; and Tirukkural, a remark-able Tamil book of couplets 2,000 years old.

What’s your position on the RTE Act mandating 25 percent reservation for underprivileged children in private schools?
The idea is excellent, and could be a workable model for creating universal school education. The problem is in the execution. The execution model has to change.

To what extent has Manipal Education Group experienced the winds of liberalisation in education?
We feel the intent clearly, and that’s encouraging. But the education sector as a whole is still caught up in irrelevancies of the past, and many continue to be committed to that ethos.

Pessimistic or optimistic about Indian democracy?
Very optimistic. Despite all challenges, it has thrived and grown.