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New School of
Thought
Hippocampus, which started as a children's
library, has blossomed into a
chain of pre-school learning centres in
rural India
Kadalur
in Bengaluru is like any small village block in India. Farmers are busy
working in the rain-washed fields even as
sugarcane crops and coconut trees
sway
in the gentle breeze. The village now boasts an all-weather road, thanks
to a promise being fulfilled in the last
state elections. Around most homes,
dry coco nut shells are strewn everywhere.
Houses here are simple and life
visibly austere.
It
is in one of these homes that the voice of Nandita Karegowda, 6, booms
when
she stands up to speak. She is at a Hip pocampus pre-school learning
centre
where children between three and six years are being groomed. The
three
spac es in the house have been converted into three separate classrooms.
Sitting on mats on the floor with a
blackboard hung on the wall, children play
with beads, learn about colours and master
numbers taught to them, mostly
in Kannada.
Dressed
in a red t-shirt and grey skirt, with cropped hair, bright eyes and
sporting
little earrings, the six-year-old intro duces herself in flawless English,
confi
dently, with poise and in a single breath: “My name is Nandita Karegowda
My
mother's name is Ramya Karegowda. My father's name is.....
My
brother's name is ....I am six years old. I am a girl. I study at the
Hippocampus
learning centre.“
The
Hippocampus pre-school in Kadalur isn't exactly fancy. For a modest
annual fee that ranges from `4,000 to `7,500
(inclusive of books and uniform),
it is the first and the bravest attempt in
India to introduce a quality pre-school
system in rural India.
“Hippocampus
stands out in building a sustainable and scalable business model
in this area,“ says Aniruddha Patil,
principal investment specialist, ADB.
The
development bank has invested in Hippocampus and holds a minority stake
in the startup.
The
best option parents, mostly farmers, have in villages for pre-school are the
government-run, poorly-managed anganwadis.
“In those early formative years,
laying a strong foundation for children is
absolutely critical. Nobody is really
focusing on it right now in the villages.
The Hippocampus centre is a great idea,“
adds
philanthropist Rohini Nilekani who has been working on improving
education
for underprivileged children via her association with the Akshara
and
Pratham foundations.
The Inspiring
Journey
As
an idea, Hippocampus pre-schools has evolved over the last decade.
For
its founder Umesh Malhotra, a former Infosys executive, it first started as a
project to set up profitable children's
libraries in 2003.Slowly, the idea morphed
and, by 2010, Malhotra was toying with the
idea of setting up pre-schools for
children in rural India. Rajiv Kuchhal, an
angel investor, and a former colleague
of Malhotra at Infosys, recalls the early
days. “Five years back, when Umesh
was working in rural India to build
libraries he strongly felt the need for
pre-schools there. It was a fantastic
concept. But I couldn't see how one could
do it. There were a lot of unknowns but it
was definitely worth trying,“ Kuchhal
says. So he decided to support the
initiative as an angel investor in a small way.
They
began the journey experimenting with three different programs for children
The
first was for pre-primary schools.Then came the after-school program
(more
like a remedial program) for children in classes I to V. And the third was
to work with class IX and X children to help
them pass the board exam.
“Very quickly we realised that it was with
pre-school learning centres that we
could be effective,“ says Kuchhal.
Today,
Hippocampus has 212 learning centres in Karnataka in 11 districts with
11,000 children and 650 people working for
it. In five years, Malhotra hopes
to have over 3,000 centres with 200,000
children. “While school enrolments
in India have gone up, learning outcomes
have been poor. We are hoping that
we will make a big difference there,“ says
Malhotra with a slightly Tamil accent,
thanks to his Chennai roots.
In
Karnataka's Mandya district, about 17 private schools in the neighbourhood
have shifted from rote-based to
activity-based learning. About 7% of all
pre-schoolers in Mandya use Hippocampus
programs, and 47 schools with
213 students have adopted their program to
teach their pre-schoolers;
Hippocampus
provides the course module, books and teacher training programs.
In five years, Malhotra hopes that in Mandya
alone the share of pre-schoolers
on the Hippocam pus program will go up from
about 7% to over 50%.
A
Low-cost Model that Works
ADB's
Patil, who is based in Manila, met Malhotra a year ago. “Their emphasis
on curriculum and learning outcomes was re
freshing,“ Patil says. The bank is
looking for sustainable business models in
India's social sector, especially in
education, health, water and sanitation.
Unitus
Seed Fund was one of the early investors in the social startup. One day
in early 2011, one of Unitus' executives
asked Malhotra some questions.
“They
gave me a real tough time,“ Malhotra recalls. He almost believed that the
investment may not come through when Unitus
came back with a `20 lakh grant
to try a pilot. By November, Unitus wanted
to become an investor in the project.
Vinod Khosla's Khosla Impact has also
invested in the startup.
“We
are always looking for profitable businesses that are highly scaleable and
provide substantial social goods.
Hippocampus meets all our requirements.
Umesh
has the qualities of a transformational leader,“ says US-based Will Poole,
managing partner, Unitus Seed Fund.Poole is
impressed by the startups's ability
to “get good teachers and retain them.They
have built a great system to recruit
and train them locally.“
To
be sure, Hippocampus has figured out a good way to hire and train locals as
teach
ers at a low cost without com promising on quality. “The pedagogy manual
equips them to teach well,“ explains Pruthvi
Banwasi, partner,
Roots
Mon tessori, which runs pre-schools in Bengaluru. Banwasi is also
secretary of Karnataka Council of
Pre-schools.
The
teachers are given mate rial day-wise. Suma Sridhar, 22, has been teaching
at a Hip pocampus centre in Mandya district
for three years now. She quit her
better-paying teacher's job at a government
school where she worked for a
year. The Hippocampus training program
places her well for future growth
and improves her prospects.
Each
center has a tablet, on which every child's progress is closely monitored,
updated
in real time and remotely tracked. “They have smartly used tablets to
collect
fees, thereby curbing pilferages,“ says Banwasi.
Typically,
setting up a Hippocampus center requires an investment of `2 lakh
and it breaks even in one to two years with
a minimum of 37 children per center.
A Hip pocampus center operates out of a
leased house with minimal and basic
infrastructure. “While their schools may not
be extremely sophisticated they
are doing a brilliant job in penetrating new
areas,“ Banwasi says.
Looking
Ahead
The
biggest challenge for Hippocampus is to cope with government apathy
and mindless regulation. For example,
Karnataka government's recent
guidelines
mandate a certain infrastructure requirement for pre-schools.
“It is a very prescriptive instruction
without factoring in the ground realities.
For example, many requirements for normal
schools have been blindly
applied
to pre-schools. Worse, curriculum norms that are meant for urban
schools
are being applied to rural pre-schools,“ says Malhotra.
This
is forcing Hippocampus to rethink its strategy. The immediate impact is that
it will slow down its expansion in
Karnataka.With 200 centers today, it could
have easily quadrupled that number. “Now we
would rather expand to other
states (with more favourable policies),“
says Malhotra.
The
first set of centers outside the home state will come up in Maharashtra,
around towns like Sangli and Kolhapur, and
the city of Nagpur by October.
The
plan is to pick districts that will have the capacity to absorb 40-50 centers
in three years; this will make the business
a lot more viable.Malhotra is also
considering an entry into Andhra Pradesh and
Tamil Nadu.
He
is also now fine-tuning the model and will expand with the help of partners.
Of
the 3,000-odd centers that he hopes to have in the next five years, half will
be via the “installation model. I do not
like the word franchise,“ says Malhotra,
who's also looking to expand the scope of
the business model. For example,
Hippocampus is examining the possibility of
teaching those beyond the
The
3 to 6 age group. As an experiment, it has also taken 20 classrooms
on
rent in existing private schools where its students from pre-school centers
have
been enrolled and are taught by Hippocampus teachers and their own
pedagogy.
A year after, Malhotra hopes to be doing this in 100 more classrooms.
Malhotra
is now also working with bodies and self-help groups like Swayam
Shikshan
Prayog in Maharashtra and Myrada in Karnataka to supply the pedagogy
and teacher training programs. “It helps us
build new revenue streams and makes
our business model more sustainable,“
Malhotra says.
“We
will work more efficiently than the government and show how quality
education can be provided to our children at
affordable cost,“ says Malhotra
with
an infectious passion and zeal. While Hippocampus' efforts may be a drop
in the ocean in a country with millions of
schoolgoing children he hopes that
his success will put pressure on the other
90% of the ecosystem to improve.
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Malini
Goyal
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ETM
30AUG15
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