US-based billionaire and finance whiz Michael Milken, one of the most famous names in American education and healthcare philanthropy towards which he has donated over $1 billion (Rs.6,000 crore), co-founder of the Milken Family Foundation and chairman of the Milken Institute, among America’s top think tanks, recently completed a whirlwind ten-day tour of India (February 12-22).
Newspeg. On the first leg of his tour in Mumbai, on February 13, Milken (a shareholder in D.T. Media & Entertainment Pvt. Ltd which owns EducationWorld) formally released 21 Schools of the 21st Century, a photography-intensive and facts and data enriched coffee table book.
Commented Milken while releasing 21 Schools in Mumbai’s iconic Taj Mahal Hotel before an audience of promoter-directors of several of India’s largest K-12 and preschool chains: “I am very impressed by the high-quality design, layout and presentation of this collection. I look forward to reading it in detail when I return to the US, after which this book will occupy a place of honour in the library of the Milken Institute in Los Angeles.”
History. A top-ranked alum of the University of California at Berkeley and the Wharton Business School of Pennsylvania University, Milken took the American world of business and finance by storm in the 1970s when he devised a whole new range of innovative financial instruments designed to unlock capital from old world corporates and industry, and making it accessible to medium and small-scale businesses. However, these radical innovations aroused the wrath of the east coast establishment resulting in heavy fines and a suspended sentence. This prompted Milken’s disengagement with the New York financial markets and his retreat to Los Angeles in the 1980s, where he co-promoted the Milken Family Foundation (estb.1982) which launched philanthropic initiatives in education, public health and medical research.
Since then, the US financial and media establishments have reassessed Milken’s contributions to finance and public services. In December, in its 85th anniversary issue Bloomberg Business Week described Milken’s financial instruments, earlier labelled ‘junk bonds’, as the #7 most disruptive innovation of the past eight decades, ahead of breakthroughs such as DNA sequencing, e-mail and Facebook.
Moreover, Fortune (November 29, 2004) feted him as the “man who changed medicine” and Forbes (December 15, 2014) as a visionary “reimagining our children’s future”. Meanwhile, the Milken Institute has morphed into one of America’s most respected think tanks whose annual Milken Global Conference staged in late April, rivals the annual Davos conference of the World Economic Forum.
Direct talk. “Human capital is the most important type of capital required for the economic development of nations. Within the next half-century, India has the potential to become the world’s most prosperous nation if it seizes the opportunity to create new knowledge and technologies and apply them to improve agricultural productivity and the health of the population,” says Milken.
Future plans. Also the promoter-chairman of Knowledge Universe, USA which with more than 2,000 pre-primary schools is the world’s largest wholly-owned preschools chain, Milken is exploring opportunities to invest in India with corporates and groups engaged in early childhood and K-12 education. “With the adult population of most countries around the world, China included, ageing rapidly, educating and skilling India’s children and youth will prove beneficial for India and the world. Therefore we are looking for opportunities to enable and facilitate this process,” says Milken.
Swagatam!
Dilip Thakore (Mumbai)
Tikmany’s signal service
Rohit Tikmany is founder-director of the Mumbai-based www.5thseptember.com, a unique jobs portal focused on teacher recruitment for K-12 and higher education institutions countrywide. Launched in June 2013, the portal, whose title pays homage to September 5 (celebrated across India as Teachers’ Day), has thus far placed over 600 teachers in 120 schools and colleges countrywide. 
Newspeg. On February 1, the portal crossed the milestone of 130,000 résumés and 140 subscriber education institutions.
History. An alum of Mumbai’s highly-respected Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Tikmany began his career at the early age of 16 as a part-time tutor following his father’s untimely death in 1993. Within the next five years, this can-do entrepreneur promoted three companies, but all of them shut shop because of “lack of capital and also because they were ahead of their time”.
In 2001, Tikmany signed on as general manager of the Mumbai-based Universal Education Group, which owns over 50 schools and colleges in western and south India, followed by a stint with the Bangalore-based Manipal Universal Learning. In 2009, he returned to the Universal Group as director and chief operating officer, and quit three years later to promote Island Education Services Pvt. Ltd, an education technology company. In June 2013, the company launched its 5thseptember.com portal.
“During my more than 14 years in the education sector, the constant refrain of principals and edupreneurs was “we can’t find good teachers”. On the other hand, most teachers are unhappy in their jobs, believing they are underpaid and undervalued.
Therefore I ideated 5thseptember.com to help education institutes find better teachers and teachers find better jobs. This is a win-win business because happy teachers create happy students and the result is a happy India,” says Tikmany who invested Rs.15 lakh of his savings to get the portal running.
But with the education-focused portal quickly attracting eyeballs, Agnus Capital, a Bangalore-based venture capital company, came aboard in November 2013 with an investment of Rs.50 lakh, topped with a second round of funding of Rs.2 crore in October last year.
Direct talk. “5thseptember.com is a very user-friendly portal which enables teachers to post their résumés and job preferences through a hassle-free process requiring a simple phone call. Education institutions who register with us are not only provided access to our large database, but also candidate background check services. Moreover, another product EduRecruit.in works like a placement service with the portal shortlisting candidates for interviews, and the school paying 3.33 percent of gross annual salary upon successful recruitment,” says Tikmany.
Future plans. Stiff targets have been set for 5thseptember.com, which currently has 27 employees. Over the next five months, the portal is expected to facilitate the placement of 6,000 teachers, while work has begun on developing other related portals. “TeachingJobs.me for the Middle East, teacher recruitment websites for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Indonesia, Mexico and China, and TeacherHappiness.com — a global social networking site for teachers — are being developed, and will be launched soon,” reveals Tikmany.
A common complaint of dedicated teachers is that they are underpaid and unappreciated. By multiplying their employment options and providing a facile matchmaking platform, Tikmany has rendered this vitally important but short-changed community a signal service.
Indrajit Dutta (Mumbai)
True green educator
Prashant Jain is promoter-director of the Delhi NCR-based Pathways Schools comprising three K-12 IBO-affiliated schools — Pathways World School, Aravali (estb.2003); Pathways School, Gurgaon (2010), Pathways School, Noida (2010) — and two Pathways Early Years preschools (2012 and 2013) with an aggregate enrolment of 3,375 students mentored by 478 teachers.
Newspeg. The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) recently conferred its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Platinum certification on Pathways School, Gurgaon (PWS-G), making it the first school worldwide to bag this prestigious award.
Established five years ago on a 10-acre campus on the Gurgaon-Faridabad Road, PWS-G’s eco-friendly campus is designed by young architect Ishwak Singh in “consonance with the education philosophy” of Pathways, developed by Prashant and his siblings Praveen and Prabhat under the mentorship of their father Pramod. With a built-up area of 375,000 sq. ft, PWS-G is a zero discharge campus where all water and sewage is treated, recycled and reused. Uniquely, the campus is powered by a mere 500 kw of electricity as against the norm of 2 mw required for a campus of similar size. “Our objective is to immerse our students in an eco-friendly environment so they become practitioners and missionaries of green living,” says Prashant, who discontinued his education after Plus Two in favour of “learning on the job”.
History. With the family business of marble, granite and natural stone exports and home furnishings conducted under the name and style of Sarla Marbles Pvt. Ltd (estb. 1985) “on auto-pilot”, in the millennium year, the Jain clan — Praveen, Prabhat and Prashant in particular — turned their attention to school education.
Direct talk. “There is a glaring disconnect between the education system and industry which needs to be bridged. We felt the best solution would be to start a school which would be attractive to children and provide them a joyous learning experience. On this premise after two years of intensive research, we promoted our first IBO-affiliated Pathways World School, Aravali in 2003,” recalls Prashant. Thanks to “excellent public response”, the number of Pathways Schools has grown to three, and two pre-primaries have been added.
Future plans. With all Pathways Schools well-reputed nationally —PWS-G and Pathways, Noida, are ranked among the country’s Top 10 international day schools and #2 and #3 in Delhi NCR while Pathways World School, Aravali is ranked #2 all-India and #1 in Delhi NCR in the international day-cum-boarding category of the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2014 — the Jain clan is committed to expanding their operations in Delhi NCR and beyond.
“We have plans to promote two more K-12 Pathways Schools and five-eight pre-primaries beyond NCR by 2017. There’s a huge and growing demand for globally-benchmarked school and early childhood education from the world’s largest child population. We want to do our best to fulfil it,” says Jain.
Way to go!
Autar Nehru (Delhi)
AFSIP peacemaker
Divya Arora is the Delhi-based India director of the US-based AFS Intercultural Programs (AFSIP). Promoted a century ago in 1915 as the American Ambulance Field Service, currently AFS is “an international, voluntary, non-government, non-profit organisation that provides intercultural learning opportunities to help people develop the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to create a more just and peaceful world”. 
A sociology and social work alumna of Delhi and Jamia Millia Islamia universities, Arora signed up with AFS as a project coordinator as soon as it established its India office in 2006 and was appointed director in 2009.
Newspeg. On November 8 (2014), AFS India celebrated its ninth year of operations and the centenary celebrations of its parent organisation by signing up for the Swachh Bharat (‘Clean India’) campaign, flagged off by prime minister Narendra Modi on Gandhi Jayanti (October 2) last year.
History. This evolutionary offshoot of the ambulance service was started in 1914 by Prof. A Piatt Andrew, a former professor of economics at Harvard University and erstwhile US assistant secretary of the treasury. Over the past century AFSIP has transformed into an international youth exchange programme to promote intercultural intelligence and tolerance. Over 13,000 students, young adults and teachers in more than 54 countries participate in AFS programmes annually. The organisational model is ‘stay and study’, under which participants are hosted by carefully screened AFS volunteers to experience diverse cultures and lifestyles. The AFS India programme has expanded to cover 21 cities and 5,000 Indian secondary school students have travelled abroad and hosted students from 54 participating member nations.
Direct talk. “We are essentially an education organisation with our various programmes aligned with our mission of promoting global peace through intercultural learning and bonding of people from different cultures. AFSIP exchange programmes are different inasmuch as exchange students actually study the local curriculum in the same settings as host students for the period of their stay. This helps them understand and connect with the culture of the host country. AFS builds the networks and friendships essential for global peace and harmony,” says Arora.
Future plans. With almost a decade’s experience of implementing programmes, AFS India has drawn up ambitious plans to scale its coverage areas and volunteer management programmes. “AFS intercultural programmes will be expanded to promote not only international student and teacher exchanges, but exchanges with students and teachers of India’s 29 states and Union territories. This will help eliminate national and regional stereotyping and promote greater national and international harmony,” says Arora.
Wind in your sails!
Autar Nehru (Delhi)
Digital career counsellor
Shravan Charya is founder-president of Lets Corp (S) Pte Ltd (estb. 2011, headcount: 60), a Singapore-based company with offices in India (Bangalore & Chennai), USA and Brunei, which offers students and working professionals career mapping and management services using new age technology.
Newspeg. Last October (2014), Charya launched the company’s flagship product LetsCareerUp (www.letscareerup.com) — a first-of-its-type online career management portal — in Bangalore. The product is designed to help school and college students as well as working professionals map their careers attuned with their skills, competencies, and aptitudes. Under the Lets Corp business model, schools and colleges register with the company for a user fee ranging from Rs.500-5,000 to access its LetsCareerUp transformation programmes to test the aptitudes of their students and set them on suitable career paths and trajectories. A similar programme is currently being developed for working professionals.
Since its launch in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, the company has signed up 212 schools and 45 colleges. Moreover, the company which was declared winner of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) Innovations for Skills Challenge 2014, has signed research agreements with Bangalore and Christ universities, and is in talks with the NSDC for a high-potential joint venture.
Direct talk. “Currently there’s a huge mismatch between skills demand and skills supply, leading to a systemic breakdown in employability and large-scale under-employment, a notable feature of the Indian economy. LetsCareerUp was built to develop a skills and competency-led career transformation approach to positively benefit and impact all stakeholders in the career eco-system — students, parents, working professionals, academic institutions, employers/industry and government,” says Charya, an alumnus of the University of Madras, D.B. Jain Institute of Management and Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, UK, who acquired 20 years of valuable industry experience in Fortune 500 companies such as Accenture, HCL Tech and Nomura Bank prior to promoting Lets Corp in 2011.
Future plans. Looking ahead, the company is intent on expanding its footprint across India, with hopes to achieve a target of 10 million users over the next five years. “With the portal live in Singapore and Brunei, we are also planning to launch a global version of LetsCareerUp in July,” says Charya.
Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)
Fitzroy Method missionary
Jeremy O’ Caroll, director of the Fitzroy Community School (estb.1976), Melbourne (Australia), is a dedicated missionary of the Fitzroy Method, a pedagogy for improving English reading and writing skills using the phonics approach which promotes learning through enunciation of each alphabet and word recognition. During his ten years as an educator, O’ Caroll has worked with more than 2,000 teachers worldwide helping them improve classroom learning outcomes — more than 3,500 schools have purchased Fitzroy educational materials. 
Newspeg. O’ Caroll was in Mumbai in January to promote the Fitzroy Method in a synthetic phonics workshop which attracted 200 teachers from 100 schools. The workshop was organised by the Mumbai-based Saar Book Publications Pvt. Ltd in collaboration with the Fitzroy Community School.
History. A former Italian literature lecturer at the University of Melbourne, O’ Caroll was inducted into the Fitzroy Method of learning from birth by his parents — Faye Berryman and Philip O’ Caroll (a former lecturer in linguistics at the University of Western Australia), — who founded the Firzroy Community School and developed the phonics-based Fitzroy Method over ten years.
A man of many talents, apart from being an educationist, O’ Caroll is a businessman, author, and also a Reiki master and co-founder of the Om Reiki Centre (estb.2008) in Melbourne. He also writes fiction and has authored a novel Full Speed (2012).
Direct talk. “India in which over 300 million adults are illiterate, is fertile ground for phonics and word-recognition-based pedagogies which is the Fitzroy Method. Australia apart, over 1,000 schools in Singapore, Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia have adopted the Fitzroy Method of learning and I am looking forward to conducting workshops in India to acquaint teachers with the Fitzroy pedagogy,” says O’ Caroll.
Future plans. Enthused by the sheer size of the Indian education market, O’ Caroll intends to make India a regular stop on his global itinerary. “I believe the Fitzroy Method has the potential to become an integral part of school curriculums in the near future,” says O’ Caroll, whose next novel Flow is in the final stages of editing.
Indrajit Dutta (Mumbai)