D. P. Chandrashekar is the Hyderabad-based chief operating officer of the Bangalore-based Jain Group of Institutions (JGI, estb. 1990) which owns and/or manages 21 education institutions including the Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain University, MATS School of Business and IT and the state-of-the-art Jain International Residential School (JIRS), Bangalore, with an aggregate enrolment of 40,000 students.
Newspeg. A public administration and education alumnus of Pandit Ravishankar Shukla (Raipur) and Bangalore universities who signed up with JGI in 2003, Chandrashekar has been deputed to Hyderabad to promote and operationalise three primary-secondary schools — including a replica of JIRS (classes VI-XII) in Hyderabad — and several tier-II cities of Andhra Pradesh.
History. Since venturing beyond Bangalore three years ago, JGI has promoted three of its Heritage (CBSE and Cambridge IGCSE) brand schools in Andhra Pradesh (Hyderabad and Vizag). Now Chandrashekar and his team are working 24/7 to commission three of its Public (state board-affiliated) brand schools within the next three months.
Direct talk. “My mandate is to make these three new schools operational before the new academic year begins. I don’t believe we will have a problem attracting students because our Heritage schools in Andhra Pradesh have earned excellent reputations,” says Chandrashekar.
Future plans. Having already promoted JGI’s first Toddlers brand pre-school in Hyderabad, Chandra-shekar is all set to multiply the number of Toddler, Public and Heritage brands across Andhra Pradesh and beyond. “With our top-end JIRS schools already established in Kanpur and Bilaspur, we are all set to launch greenfield Heritage, Public and Toddlers schools in Aurangabad, Nagpur and Hubli. All these tier-II cities need high-quality schools and we intend to fulfill their demand for quality education,” says Chandrashekar.
S. Pratibha (Hyderabad)