Pearson Education Services bets on schools, coaching centres

Setting up schools is the newest trend among education firms. 
After players such as Everonn and Educomp, Pearson Education Services, part of the global education firm Pearson, is the latest to bank big on this segment.

Meena Ganesh, CEO and MD, Pearson Education Services, said schools providing education from kindergarten to class 12 (K-12) will be a key area of focus for the company.

The firm currently has 25 K-12 schools in India, reaching out to 12,000 kids in cities including Mangalore, Bangalore, Mysore, Manipal, Indore, Bhopal and Raipur. These schools adhere to the state board, CBSE and ICSE syllabi.

“We plan to touch 100 schools in the next two to three years. There is a huge demand in this segment and parents are ever-ready to put their children in private schools,” said Ganesh.

Pearson had set up its first school in 2008 in Mysore.

Some of the new schools will come up in places such as Hyderabad, Aurangabad, Ludhiana and Jalandhar.

Each school will cater to a maximum of 2,000 students, with about 30 in each class.

“Two thousand is a good capacity per school. Beyond that would mean stretching it out to another campus,” said Ganesh.

Ganesh said the demand is very strong from Tier II towns as well.
Pearson has a school with 900 kids in Sohagpur, a small town about 100 km from Bhopal, with several students there coming from farming background.

Narayan Ramaswamy, partner and head, education practice, KPMG, said there is tremendous growth opportunity in the private school segment with a growing propensity to spend on good education and a dearth of quality schools.

Various estimates suggest there are around 80,000 private schools and 225,000 private partially aided schools, apart from over one million government schools.

“Almost every parent wants a private education. There is a clear demand and supply mismatch, which means there is room for more and more players to make a mark,” said Ramaswamy.

K-12 comprises as much as 60% of the education sector in India.

Estimates by consulting firm Technopak state that from $40 billion in 2008 the education segment will reach $115 billion by 2018.

Apart from schools, Pearson is also looking at setting up more coaching centres across India, said Ganesh.

Currently, it has 60 centres providing coaching for class 10 and 12 exams as well as for medical and engineering entrance exams, going by the names of Edurite Learning Centre in Karnataka and Tandem in Kerala.