Witty way ahead

Dr Vinay Jain and Dr Raina Jain, both merit ranker medical graduates, are successful first generation entrepreneurs and renowned educationists and professional trainers. Dr Vinay Jain is the managing director and Dr Raina Jain is a full-time director of VJTF Eduservices Limited. They head Witty Group of Institutions, their own chain of international schools.

What caused both of you to shift to education after pursuing medicine? Has your prior qualification helped you a gain a better understanding of this sector?
Dr Raina: Dr Vinay Jain always had a strong passion for education. A much sought after speaker right from his college days, his speeches can mesmerise people and compel them to think differently. He wanted to bring in quality in education services. His undying passion made me change my profession. We also felt that reinventing education was the need of the hour and wanted to take it head on.

Being qualified doctors, we can understand the complete development of a child–be it physical, physiological, emotional, social or psychological.

The curriculum at Witty Kids is based on the varied philosophies of Rabindranath Tagore, Maria Montessori and Mahatma Gandhi. Can you please elucidate that?
Education not only moulds the new generation, but also reflects a society’s fundamental assumptions about itself and its individuals. Rabindranath Tagore, Maria Montessori, and Mahatma Gandhi believed in giving individualistic and wholesome education to children, which would help develop independent and well-rounded children. We at Witty follow the ‘Discovery with Action’ philosophy, as advocated by all three visionaries.

How does Witty Kids propagate ‘Religious education and collective worship’? Why did you decide to include this in the curriculum?
India has diverse religions and cultures, with all of them teaching good moral values. To instill these basic values in children, we lay emphasis on the celebration of festivals and varied cultures. This is also important as people have started blindly aping the west and our traditional values are losing their sheen. Children ought to be made to realise the value of the same and thus we have madethis is an integral part of our curriculum.  

Any particular reason for the choice of location of the recently opened Witty Kids at Goregaon?
We wanted to build a world class facility for children, as we found that there is no such facility in Mumbai. We were fortunate to identify a suitable location with virtually no traffic in Goregaon West. We transformed this 14000 sqft, G+4 storey structure into a kids world, where kids can grow, explore and evolve. While designing the concept for the school, we virtually challenged all traditional beliefs that existed in the school industry.  

How do you and your wife complement each other in the running of the institutions, vis-a-vis expertise and interest?
We both have our own set of strengths and weaknesses that we bring on board along with our other team members. While I am more social, thought-provoking and more into team building, Raina is a strict and disciplined leader. She is the one who has set discipline and quality standards in all our institutions. I am more into policy making, expansions, team building, and overall administration. Raina is more into the day-to-day operations and quality audits at all our schools. We usually do not interfere in eachother’s area of operation.

We are also fortunate to be backed by an excellent team who have been with us through thick and thin this last 15 years.

What do you think is the way ahead for Witty institutions?
We are set to launch a few international schools in a couple of years that would redefine the way people perceive education and schooling. We are committed to challenging the industry benchmarks and setting new ones, as we firmly believe that children deserve nothing but the best.