Among the several changes that the Covid pandemic made to school education delivery was the need for private schools to look for professional help in their operations as the space was not only seeing technology integration at speed but also requiring them to follow financial prudence as the new necessity. School businesses which until then were largely run on simple traditional operations, opened to a new world of possibilities that solution providers were bringing in the post-covid scenario. Crimson Schools, a bye-product of this new change, is one such solutions company that introduced end-to-end school operational solutions to become probably country’s first school operating company in 2021. In less than four years of its existence, the company is operating 16 schools in seven cities and is poised to for a multiplying effect in years to come. Husien Dohadwalla, Chief Executive Officer of Crimson Schools and an internationally acclaimed academic leader in school education spoke to Autar Nehru on Crimson Schools.
Tell us about Crimson Schools, what exactly your area of business and how this idea germinated?
We’re a school operating company providing end-to-end operations. Basically, we run the school completely from admissions to academics and assessments. How it started is that some schools because of Covid, etc faced different kind of challenges. There were some schools where the parents had set up the school but children were not interested in running them. Then, some schools were closing on financial viability. So, we as a network of people who had experience in K-12 space for many years joined hands to offer solution to these kinds of schools. That’s how we were born in 2021.
The thinking was that if a solution has to be offered, it has a convincing and saleable alternative. So, this was a 360-degree approach. The company roped in experts from academics, finance, technology and infrastructure to work on every school process. We brought people with academic expertise and exposed to understanding of international curriculum and international boards operate, national boards did a lot of research. Barrowed good things from international practices and integrated these in the new programs. We formed team for finance, we’ve got a team for compliance, and we’ve also got a team for academics, content and assessments. Then, infrastructure is a mainstay of successful operation and we have great team of experts working for us. And we offer end-to-end solutions to 16 schools currently.
How does this work in real sense?
The school promoter entity, a society or trust as per regulation owns the school as you in India a company can’t own a school. And we operate the school. Now to explain it, there are a few scenarios. Like our own schools (3 in Hyderabad, 2 in Pune), the land and building are funded by an equity fund and everything is managed by us. In other cases, we have taken over from original promoters to turn around those schools. Here the promoters /society own the property and school and pays for the services. In yet another scenario, where the real estate developers provide for the land and building, the society pays them a rent to run the school.
Also, let me make this point that most of the schools we take have challenges that need investment in infrastructure from buildings to labs. Buildings also have a date and need to adherence to building code. So, the old fashioned buildings have to repaired and renovated for contemporary looks every 15-20 years. Then we add to sports arena and also technology augmentation is important. So, we see these schools requiring care for 10 or more years before these can make any surplus, so it is social enterprise driven by a passion for quality education.
How do you choose a school? Or how will a school like to approach you for this takeover?
We do an assessment and evaluation on its potential. It takes about a few months. Geography, location, competition and viability are some standard parameters we apply to determine candidature. Once satisfied, we then begin the process with the promoters and then in a year or so, we take over the operations.
Schools are institutions built on both goodwill and emotions, I mean there is a lot of emotional investment from promoters say on name of the school, which becomes an inseparable identity over the years. How do you look at this while taking over running of schools?
We understand that some schools are 25, 30 years old or even older and there is a legacy, there is a strong alumni network. We don’t want to disturb that. We come just as an operator; the branding of the schools always remains. We’re also careful about logo and other identity symbols. In some cases, we haven’t even changed the uniform. At the same time, we also convey that it is a Crimson school. But yes, in same cases, the name change may be part of turnaround strategy. You can say we have a mixed strategy. If we find a school is struggling and name needs to be changed as it may help in addressing those challenges, we’ll do that.
We’re also aware that school brands are built over years and over trust of parental community. So, gradually, we want to build that trust about Crimson schools in stakeholders and our hope is slowly people will start recognizing us and understand what we bring to the table. That will increase our acceptability and then may we’ll think about a uniform group identity. But that’s not an immediate priority for us.
A related question, change of management also triggers fears of layoffs and new recruitments. So, what happens to existing teachers and support staff? Do you retain them?
Yeah, we retain 99% of the teachers. We know teachers are connecting channels for successful rollout of our programs and interventions. Most of the teachers have a lot of potential if provided with a fertile environment and advancement pathways. Unfortunately, they remain struck and stagnate in their roles for a long time in the internal distribution of roles. We address this on a priority basis, we have created pathways such as section heads, coordinators and other roles to ensure teachers feel motivated to perform and see their growth.
We identified, so many of our schools, we looked at, okay, you know, a section ahead of grade level head, a coordinator, we’ve given these three, they’ve been sort of part of it, and we’ve ensured all of them are aware of one of the kinds of part where they have just performed. In this principals are very important as at local level they have to implement the solutions and we build their capacities and also extend support from our central teams.
You have already done a lot of good research work and put some of it into practice in your operations and I am sure this is an ongoing project. This makes me to ask you, is there a thinking on sharing some of this learning publicly for others to also benefit?
Yeah, so one thing which we are planning and something is still at the planning stage is upskilling of principals or school leaders. In India, we don’t really have any kind of organization that works for upskilling at that level. We focus on upskilling of teachers and also students but school leaders are largely lefty to their own. We want to create modules for school leaders and that will be open out for everybody. It will be a good thing for the entire school education as principals or school heads are the ones who are the actual change agents at the microscopic level or school unit level as school depends on them.
Lastly, would you tell us about expansion and future plans?
As I said, we’re fully aware of the gestation period and the need to prove ourselves. It is really satisfying that having begun in 2021, we have reached 16 schools as of now in seven cities with over 15000 students. We have seen increase in the number of student admissions year on year in Hyderabad and elsewhere. So, we are very excited. Next target is to reach 30 schools in next three years and then 50 in five years. We remain upbeat and committed to make Crimson Schools a best school chain in India.
