It was around the summer of 2012, exactly four years
ago, that I was desperately looking for a school/college for my niece who
completed her tenth standard. She wanted to join the MPC stream with the goal
of becoming an engineer. Being in the education sector, I wanted to make sure
she has the right guidance, good ambience, like-minded friends and a healthy
environment for “learning”, mind you, I mean learning and not studying or
getting seat in an engineering college. The first choice was between CBSE and
State Board/Intermediate. Students, especially girls, want to get free from the
shackles of the school uniform and wear colourful clothes or jeans/slacks.
However, I did not want to completely eliminate CBSE schools for that reason.
Now, there are advantages to joining a CBSE school, as
the curriculum is good, the emphasis is more on learning the subject rather
than rote learning. The drawback is that most schools cater to the board syllabus
well, but the preparation for the entrance exams is not that great. Moreover,
following the CBSE syllabus, the students are at a disadvantage when it comes
to the State entrance exam, EAMCET. So I would need to enroll her to another
institution for the entrance exam coaching post school. This would be pretty
taxing for her as she would have to go to school and later, for the coaching.
The other option was to join her in an Intermediate
college. There are two types of colleges. The old-time colleges that focus on
the Intermediate education and the new-age corporate colleges that focus on
Intermediate as well as entrance exam preparation. The first option would not
solve the problem of separate coaching. Most of the new age colleges have very
demanding schedules. The duration would be from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm with no
extra-curricular activities. I could not imagine studying only maths, physics
and chemistry whole day long for 6 days in a week and then writing exams on
Sunday. During this quest, I came across a college in Secunderabad, iClass
Junior college, which had classes only from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm and also
included entrance exam preparation. I liked the fact that the directors were
personally involved in the teaching. So my quest for a college ended and she
studied in that college.
During this journey, I had a revelation. There are
limited options for students who want to pursue all-round development during
their 11th and 12th with extra-curricular activities as
well as adequate preparation for entrance exams. Further, the options for the
students who wanted to study in the commerce stream were further restricted.
Worst of all was the fate of students who were averse to Maths. Only the
students who barely passed tenth grade got into such streams, so those who
joined by choice had only such students for company. Do the students in
Hyderabad who want to pursue good quality education be denied of a good
environment? Further, is it a crime to take up Arts or Commerce? And that was
when the seed of starting an Intermediate College was sown.
Around the same time, our Abhyaas CLAT preparation was
in full swing and parents of our current students were enquiring why we only
train students for CLAT and not for intermediate. Parents liked our teaching
methodology and wanted a one-stop solution for their other children. Most of
the CLAT aspirants actually opt for Commerce so as we saw earlier, they have
limited options. Now the business need also evolved to initiate Intermediate
education. Though we could not satisfy the needs of the parents in that year,
within two years, we successfully launched Gyanville Academy in 2014.
How is Gyanville Academy different from the run-of-the
mill colleges? For one, we focus on intermediate education along with careers
and personality development. Students go through a counselling session where
their aptitude is evaluated through a questionnaire to ascertain their
interests. Based on their responses, our counsellors identify their aptitude
towards different career options like Engineering, law, design or management.
Next, they write a test which assesses their capability. Only when their
interests are in alignment with their capabilities, a student will be able to
exploit his/her potential. After a brief interaction with the student as well
as parents, a decision is made to enroll the student into Gyanville Academy.
The major factor to consider while admitting a student is the learnability of
the students and the proper support and conducive learning environment from the
family.
The pedagogy includes intermediate education along
with emphasis on improving the reading skills, writing skills and the general
knowledge of the students. Personality development with discussions and debates
forms a major component. Assignments and tests challenge the students to
explore the subject. Continuous feedback on the performance using charts for
emphasis and understanding of the data help pin-point areas for improvement.
Two years have passed and the first batch of students
were given a farewell by the students last week. We had a mix of science and
commerce students with an average percentage of 91% for Science stream and 93%
for Commerce stream. Out of the four engineering aspirants, three of them
qualified IIT-Mains and the fourth one gained admission in VIT. The lone design
career aspirant gained admission into the School of Design at Pearl Academy,
Mumbai and is awaiting results from NIFT. Law aspirants have written the CLAT
exam as well as the entrance exams for Symbiosis. The lone management career
aspirant has written the exam to gain admission to IIM-Indore for their 5-year
integrated program. What started as a dream four years ago has now turned a
reality and the first set of students is going out to pursue careers of their
choice. It is a truly satisfying journey and one that justifies leaving a
lucrative but stressful IT career to pursue a career in education.
