news-k12
Serra Pre-school eyes Pan-India operations
GEMS Education partners with UNESCO
Serra International Pre-school has entered into a joint venture with EtonHouse International Education Group of Singapore to launch a chain of international pre-schools across India.
The Singapore-based group is well-established in Asia with 52 schools and pre-schools across Singapore, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Japan and India with students from 54 different nationalities. “We decided to invest Rs 100 crore for setting up 100 franchised international pre-schools by next year and 1000 franchised international pre-schools in the next seven years across India. Our aim is to revolutionise the early childhood education in the country by providing world-class curriculum,” Serra International Pre-Schools Chairman, Arun Arora said. “For the next year, we want to focus our expansion plans across Pune, Mumbai, and Gujarat in the west, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Secunderabad in the South Delhi/NCR and Punjab in the north, These, we believe are some of the key markets that value high quality international pre-school education and would enthusiastically welcome an offering such as ours,” said Mr. Arora. Pre-school education market is set to reach USD 1 billion mark by 2012 against USD 750 million at present. “The Indian pre-school market is set to become the largest in the world. In India, the pre-school segment is currently worth USD 750 million and is expected to reach USD 1 billion by 2012,” Serra International Pre-Schools Chairman, Arun Arora.
Haryana to implement RTE Act from Nov 11 The Haryana government is going to implement the Right to Education Act (RTE) in state-run schools from November 11. The RTE Act will be implemented to ensure free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of 6-14. The government will implement the RTE Act in all state- run schools from November 11, coinciding with the birth anniversary of India first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. As per the Act, any cost that prevents a child from accessing school will be borne by the state which shall have the responsibility of enrolling the kid as well as ensuring attendance and completion of eight years of schooling.
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digitalLEARNING
november / 2011 www.digitallearning.in
GEMS Education has announced partnership with The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to undertake world’s largest leadership training programme, wherein 10,000 school principals will be trained globally. The first phase of the programme will involve India, Kenya and Ghana. Over a period of four years 10,000 school principals will be trained in these countries. In India, 3500 principals will be trained under the ‘Leadership Programme’. In developing countries like India, there is very little or negligible training programme for school principals, which in many ways has hampered the effective delivery of education. Therefore, there is an urgent need of leadership training for principals that will help them improve their skills in school management and, thus, enabling them to innovate and offer much more effective and efficient learning at all level of education – benefitting thousands of teachers and millions of students. GEMS Education will undertake this leadership training programme through its not-for-profit organization – The Varkey GEMS Foundation, which is established to improve access to education for 10 million underprivileged children worldwide. This initiative is part of the Varkey GEMS Foundation’s commitment to action the ‘10,000 Principals Leadership Programme’, announced by former President of United States of America Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York, USA, on September 22, 2011. Bill Clinton is the honorary Chair of the Varkey GEMS Foundation.