Cash on them young

By Meghla Kathju

These days IT education companies have been harping on high-end IT courses

for graduates, under graduates and are cashing on terms like e-commerce, Java,

Perl, Cold Fusion, etc. In all this hustle and bustle of creating Web

professionals and e-com specialists, two educational companies in Delhi -

Advance Educational Technologies Pvt Ltd (AET) and Boston Education and Software

Technologies Pvt Ltd - have taken a ‘U’ turn and decided to address the age

group of two to 14. And they plan to do this by adopting the franchising model.

While AET, a new venture, will begin its ‘Mighty Mouse’ cyber school this

month, Boston, which has an established network in South and West India,

launched four of its Cyberkid Computer Academy centers in the city last week.

AET aims at establishing 100 centers all over the country by the end of the

first financial year, with 20 centers in Delhi alone. It will target audiences

in the metros, urban as well as the semi-urban cities. According to Dinesh

Nambiar, Managing Director, AET, these markets are huge and have not been tapped

as yet. Boston, on the other hand is targeting only the metros. Said Ashok

Bhagnari, Director (Marketing), Boston, "Our target is the upper middle

class, who have some extra money to spend on their kids every month."

While AET plans to charge its franchisee Rs 13 lakh, Boston is looking in the

region of between Rs 8 to Rs 9 lakh. Both AET and Boston have developed the

course content in-house, with their own R&D teams. In addition, AET has tied

up with an Australian company, Infosoft International Pty Ltd for technical

guidance. Both will provide training to the faculty of their franchisees. Though

confident of their plans, there are many who feel that the franchising model

might not work as well with kids.

Manoj Saraogi, MD, Learning Adventure, a cyber school for kids, believes that

franchisees might not be able to take adequate care of the child’s needs. Said

he, "We too had looked in to the idea of franchising a while ago. We did

some research, spoke to potential franchisees, visited some of the NIIT Leda

franchises and finally concluded that the franchisee would not be able to give

the personal attention that a child requires."

In the case of NIIT, some of its Leda franchisees closed down and it had to

start afresh with new franchisees. "If with a name like NIIT, the

franchisees had to close down, how do you expect anybody else to succeed,"

asks Saraogi. However, Abhinav Lal, Head, NIIT Leda, believes that the

franchisee method can be very successful. "But, the most important aspect

of the whole exercise is selecting the right partner. The skill, financial

support, attitude, etc becomes especially important with kids, since they are a

very sensitive group."

Leda’s failure with franchisees was attributed to mistakes in the selection

of franchisees, some of whom, it was found, could not give 100 per cent of their

time and mindshare to the center. Unlike adults, a child does not see a tangible

benefit in coming to a cyber school. In fact, if a child does not enjoy being

there, it is unlikely that the child will go again. For this, the management,

teachers and everyone in the center needs to have a personal relationship with

the student.

Unfortunately, a franchisee, for whom this is just another business, won’t

be able to provide the right kind of environment for the child. So, how well

Advance Educational Technologies and Boston Education and Software Technologies

manage to select their franchisees will determine the success of their effort in

spreading the IT culture among kids.