Mumbai-based Bhupendra Acharya and Bhavana Sharma are founder-directors of Taj Eduglobe Ltd (TEL, estb.2015), a new-age company offering aptitude testing and career development services to students individually and through educational institutions. Under its Discover Brain programme, the company offers psychometric testing services — Dermatoglyphics Multiple Intelligence Tests (DMIT) and mark enhancement techniques (MET) — which enable students to identify their special intelligences and competencies. Test results are supplemented with professional career counselling services.

Newspeg. In January, the company launched a countrywide initiative to offer students its Discover Brain Psychometric Tests (Rs.2,500) free-of-charge. Since then, TEL’s 110 trained counsellors have administered over 200,000 free psychometric tests to students in more than 15 cities including Mumbai, Pune, Rajkot and Chandigarh. Moreover, it has signed up 250 franchisees to set up its testing centres across India.

History. A commerce graduate of Acharya Nagarjuna University, Andhra Pradesh, Acharya is a serial entrepreneur. Earlier he launched Acharya Tours and Travels and Global Shine before promoting Taj Technotech Ltd in 2012, an IT company which also provided aptitude testing services. In September last year, he registered Taj Eduglobe to exclusively offer psychometric testing products and career counseling to students.

“The objective of TEL is to enable students to discover their learning styles, special intelligences and aptitudes through tried and tested psychometric tests and to make informed career decisions,” says Acharya, chairman of TEL, which already boasts 35 client schools including Singapore International School and RBK International Academy, Mumbai and Delhi Public School, Siliguri, among others.

Direct talk. “Our DMIT test not only helps identify students’ aptitudes and strengths, but also provides parents and teachers the basis for remedial programmes. On the other hand, MET helps students to improve their memorisation and recall skills through scientifically proven brain exercises,” says Bhavana Sharma, an alumna of St. Joseph’s College, Darjeeling and a former fashion and lifestyle entrepreneur who signed up as TEL’s founder-managing director last year.

Fees: Rs.8,500 per student for DMIT and MET.

Future plans. With its complimentary psychometric tests being received enthusiastically and generating word-of-mouth publicity, Bhupendra Acharya is bullish about the future. By year-end, TEL plans to extend this service to 700,000 students in 1,800 schools countrywide. “Over 35 schools have already signed up for our testing and counselling services and we are confident we can expand it further. With growing awareness of the critical importance of high-quality education, this sector is poised for expansion. Therefore we have also drawn up plans for providing education consultancy, teacher training and retailing school uniforms and other education accessories,” says Bhupendra Acharya.

Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)

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