Affiliations And Collaboration With International Education Brands Is Key For Schools In India

A panel at the 2nd BW Education Leadership Summit Top Education Brands Awards 2019 discussed key strategies to grow and sustain around high competition in the education market. Moderated by Raghav Podar, Chairman, Podar Education the topic of discussion was 'Establishing and Maintaining Your USP In Competitive Saturated Markets'. 

"The vision, mission and philosophy for all institutions when it comes to branding of 140 schools is what we look at. Beyond branding, every center is delivering curriculums in a different manner according to the education environment. A brand is one's identity and what is really important is how they interact with students and implement a stronger relevance by all other groups of schools," said Kavita Agarwal, Member, MISA as she inaugurated the discussion. 

Elaborating further on increasing the USP of top schools belonging to the Indian education system, Ryan Pinto, CEO, Ryan Group of Institutions discussed a few main strategies during the panel discussion.

"When we started back in 1976, our founders were teachers who only wanted to establish a good school and deliver good education which has been our core fundamental. During the admissions, we are out there competing with other schools and today we only look at growing our USPs. The only way to push a schooling brand to the top is by providing the right kind of education and nurture students for the next phase of their lives. However, we are the only institution in India that is associated with the USA Government of Pennsylvania where universities of that state are providing offers and mobility to our students. That is a unique proposition we have at Ryan Group of Institutions", said Ryan Pinto. 

Reekrit Serai, Director, Satluj Group of Schools provided a very direct viewpoint on growing a school's USP. He opined, "It is important to understand that we are not only selling education but also dreams and hopes along with it. Every school has the same kind of exams and teaching processes. We are setting apart nothing from government schools except extra and better features. Education institutions do not run for profit and hence we need to make noise about what are we selling differently or else no one will know we exist. Strong branding is key in order to increase the USP of an education brand". 

While most of the panelists spoke about affiliations with top foreign education brands, Kamal Gupta stressed more upon the importance of collaborations.

"I've been running colleges and schools since the last 7 decades around the country. We eventually realized we need to expand and that is when we looked at the concept of collaboration as our key strategy. When we collaborate with any of our partners, they know the grassroots realities of education processes. Today we have a huge number of schools and institutions thanks to our guidelines. When everyone told us not to go ahead with this method of expansion, we researched. With an aim to be disruptive, we provide international exposures to our students", said Kamal Gupta, Vice President, Seth M.R Jaipuria Schools while stating his ways of driving the growth of an education brand during the discussion. 

Bhaktvatsal Sharma

BW Reporters The author is a journalist with BW Businessworld