A dream come true!!

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 11^th and 12^th 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.