The entry of the Manipal Education Group, which over the past half century has focused its energies on higher education, into the primary and secondary schools sector, has created a flutter within the somnolent dovecotes of Indian academia, and generated great expectations within India’s 300 million-strong middle class. Dilip Thakore reports The entry announced on December 18 of the Bangalore- based Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG) — India’s most respected private provider of professional (medical, engineering, nursing, business management etc) education and perhaps the country’s sole education multinational — into K-12 school education, has caused a flutter within the somnolent dovecotes of Indian academia and excitement within the middle class. With the country’s 1.89 million government (Central, state and municipal) primary and secondary schools written off by the 300 million strong Indian middle class as beyond redemption, the backward integration of the Manipal Group, which over the past half century has focused its energies on higher education, into the private K-12 sector, which is suffering acute capacity shortages, is a historic development. If all goes according to the ambitious nationwide rollout plan of the MEMG top management, the stress and anxiety which middle class households experience at the time of school admissions every year, could be considerably reduced. Although the Central and state government of Karnataka, which also offer heavily subsidised professional education in government-run medical and engineering colleges, tend to regard the 56-year-old Manipal Group (comprising the 19 institutions of the not-for-profit Manipal University, Sikkim-Manipal University and the commercially-driven MEMG International Pvt. Ltd, which together boast an aggregate enrolment of 167,000 students in India and overseas), with a jaundiced eye, within middle class India, the Manipal Group has built itself an enviable, nationwide reputation. There is widespread awareness within shining India that graduates of Manipal institutions transform into highly successful professionals respected around the world (25 percent of Malaysia’s medical practitioners are Manipal University graduates). Despite government, the left-dominated intelligentsia, and even the Supreme Court naively disapproving the “commercialisation of education”, of which the Manipal Group is widely regarded as a standard bearer, this education conglomerate has won an excellent public reputation for delivering world class professional education at a fraction of tuition prices abroad, and the actual cost of government subsidised education. Hence great expectations and rising excitement about the Manipal Group’s entry into K-12 education. “Although it’s not well known, my grandfather, the late T.M.A. Pai who constructed and promoted our flagship Kasturba Medical College in Manipal in 1953, began his involvement with Indian education by promoting village schools in the Udupi district of Karnataka. Therefore we are no strangers to school education. However even though the focus of the Manipal Group has been on providing higher professional education, of late we have been mulling the idea of re-entering the K-12 schools sector, where there is a severe shortage of institutions delivering good learning outcomes at affordable prices. But since we have a reputation to maintain, we waited for the right moment and right partners rather than venture half-heartedly into…
