People

KidZee missionary

A chartered accountant who chooses the propaggation of education as his vocation is a rarity. But that’s A.K. Khetan, Mumbai-based chief executive officer of Zee Interactive Learning Systems Ltd. (ZILS), for whom provision of quality education has become a mission. After qualifying in Kolkata, Khetan worked with several corporates including Rallis India, where he put in seven years. During the course of his career, he also worked for a short spell with an entertainment company, Multi Channel India Ltd, prior to promoting a business consultancy firm.

"Hence when I signed up with Zee Telefilms, the pioneer satellite television broadcasting corporate as vice president (finance) in 2000, I already had some experience of the entertainment industry," recalls Khetan.

When Zee Telefilms was restructured at the end of that year, Khetan opted to join the education division as chief financial officer. Before long, he found himself deeply involved with the subject and as chief executive of the division — a position to which he was promoted in 2003 — drew up ambitious expansion plans. Consequently Zee Education, which began to educate television audiences about computer usage, rapidly evolved into a much larger business. Today ZILS delivers learning solutions and training to several segments of society through its divisions viz, ZIMA (Zee Institute of Media Arts), ZICA (Classical and Digital Animation Training Academy), Zed CA (Career Academy) and Zee E-learning (online education). The company is also into pre-primary education under the brand name Kidzee, an area into which it ventured in 2003-2004, and which is closest to Khetan’s heart.

"We realised that there were areas where there was clearly a deeply felt societal need and pre-primary education was one of them. Our basic philosophy focuses on satisfying every child’s inquisitive mind through concept clarity. Therefore we adopted the pedagogy of learning by playing. The Kidzee curriculum is structured bearing in mind interests and abilities of pre-school children with emphasis on their stress-free holistic development," explains Khetan.

ZIL’s Kidzee curriculum offered countrywide through a franchise system is currently available in 350 nursery schools across India, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolhapur and Patna. "The one principle we don’t compromise on is quality. We have devised a meticulous monitoring system to deliver quality education," says Khetan. "Our mission is to help young minds grow and learn in stress-free environments resulting in the all-round development of pre-primary children, and we guarantee this mission is met in every Kidzee school."

For the future, Khetan has ambitious expansion plans lined up. "We are looking to provide the fullest and best service we can to education in this country. Within the next five years we want to expand our services to the entire 0-16 age group and be # 1 in this segment as well," he says.

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)

India in Columbia

A large delegation of Columbia University (est. 1754), USA, was in India on a research-study tour in January. In Mumbai the Columbia University Club of India convened a panel discussion on the subject ‘India at Columbia’ at which the head of the Middle East and Asian languages and cultures department Dr. Sheldon Pollock; professor of anthropology and history, Dr. Nicholas B. Dirks, and assistant professor of history (modern South Asia), Dr. Janaki Bakhle provided interesting insights on the extent to which South Asia and India in particular, is assuming an incrementally growing profile in American academia.

According to Pollock more than 50 Columbia faculty members are engaged in South Asian studies. Most of them study or research in the region at least once every three years. Enrollments in South Asian study programmes are at an all-time high of 1,736 undergrads, 808 graduate students and 65 Ph D students pursuing coursework related to India and South Asia. An alumnus of Harvard University, Pollock himself is currently the William B. Ransford professor of Sanskrit and Indian studies at Columbia. "My areas of specialisation are Sanskrit philology and Indian intellectual history, and, increasingly, comparative intellectual history," he says.

Prof. Dirks is credited with revitalising Columbia’s South Asia study programmes by adding new courses, faculty and partnerships and encouraging new scholarship. As a result, Columbia now offers 135 non-language courses with South Asian content in 13 arts and sciences departments and its graduate schools of journalism, law, business and international affairs. According to Dirks, Columbia’s South Asian languages programme covers Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil (in which Dirks is fluent), Tibetan and Sanskrit. "Although I have written on subjects as diverse as pre-colonial Indian history and contemporary Indian cinema, I have been principally preoccupied in recent years with the historical formation of castes," says Dirks whose most recent book is titled Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton University Press).

Also deeply involved in South Asian studies, Prof. Janaki Bakhle is attached to Columbia’s department of Middle East and Asian languages and cultures whose specialisation is in the areas of colonialism and modern South Asian history, cultural history (19th century), nationalism and Maharashtra. Bakhle has just published Two Men and Music: Nationalism in the Making of an Indian Classical Tradition (New York: Oxford, 2005). "I have taken a sabbatical from Columbia to research Marathi revolutionaries of the early 20th century. I am working to situate their activities within a specifically Marathi discourse," she says.

Recently president George Bush advised American academia which is notorious for its insularity, to encourage the study of foreign languages, especially of Asia. Quite obviously in Columbia University, this advice is redundant.

Ronita Torcato (Mumbai)

Optimist par excellence

An optimist, it is said, sees an opportunity in every adversity. Whether judged by this or any other criterion, Prof. Ketna Mehta is an optimist par excellence. Her accomplishments in academia and elsewhere are many, but perhaps her greatest achievement is that despite being severely injured in a paragliding accident in 1995, which rendered her paraplegic, she has bounced back and taken on additional academic responsibilities.

The editor and associate dean of research at the Welingkars Institute of Management Development and Research, Mumbai, Mehta edits the bi-annual Welingkars Research Journal, besides guiding students writing research papers and project reports. She also edits the alumni newsletter of the institute and contributes research papers to national and international publications. "After my accident I became acutely aware of the limited information available to the spinal cord- injured community in India. Out of this awareness was born the Nina Foundation, One World-Voice of Paraplegics, with a mission to improve the quality of life of paraplegics, while providing them with relevant infor-mation to shore up their confidence. We provide counselling services to the physically challenged while lobbying for employment opportunities for them," says Mehta who has a Masters in marketing management from Mumbai’s prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies.

Unsurprisingly she is also an activist of Able Disabled All People Together (ADAPT), an affiliate of the Spastics Society of India. ADAPT is in the vanguard of a growing countrywide movement fighting for inclusion of the disabled, demanding, among other things, facilities like ramps and railings in public spaces and transport, to make life easier for the disabled.

Her social activism and academic responsibilities at Welingkars Institute apart, Mehta edits several business publications of the National Centre for Quality Management and the Institute of Management Consultants of India. She is also honorary chairperson of the BMA Review, newsletter of the 52-year-old Bombay Management Association.

Recently (November 2005), Mehta released her first book titled Nano Thoughts on Management through the Nina Foundation. "It’s a book about motivational management, perhaps one-of-its-kind in India. It focuses upon dealing with diverse issues like security, ethics, strategy, etc. I have written one-page ‘nano’ thoughts on 50 issues," says Mehta with indomitable spirit.

Right on sister!

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)

Indian Education Report initiator

"Education is my first passion and I want to give it more of my time," says Sushma Berlia, chairperson of the Apeejay Stya Group of several companies with an annual aggregate revenue of Rs.3,500 crore. Last December Berlia made history by assuming office as the first woman president of the Punjab, Haryana, Delhi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI) in its centenary year.

An alumna of the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Shimla & Delhi and Lady Sri Ram College with a Masters in business economics from Delhi University, Berlia is also vice-president of the Apeejay Education Society, which runs 13 schools (in north India) and 13 institutions of higher and professional education (management, IT, engineering, fine arts, design etc) with a combined enrollment of 32,000 students. "We need a new NEP (National Education Policy) in the changed global scenario. Following intensive and structured debate between all stakeholders in schools and higher education, a new NEP will have to replace NEP 1986 which has outlived its purpose," says Berlia.

In this connection she has already taken a major initiative of great potential by registering the Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI) last year, of which Berlia is the founder president. EPSI will publish its first India Education Report (IER) by end 2006. The report focusing on 35 major issues and challenges confronting Indian education will be submitted to Union HRD ministry in early 2007. "In the first few chapters of IER we have focused on higher education. It includes the views and opinions of over 100 academicians, economists, industrialists and representatives of various institutions including government, CII, Assocham, FICCI and AIMA. We hope to finalise our recommendations for higher education by end March this year when they will be forwarded to the government," says Berlia.

A staunch advocate of intensive industry-academia engagement, Berlia is also on the Delhi government’s working group on technical education for formulation of the Tenth Plan and through the Apeejay Stya Education Research Foundation hopes to discover new pedagogies and attain new standards of research with international alliances. In her opinion, it’s high time for Indian industry and academia to synergise and work towards fulfilling the modest socio-economic aspirations of the people.