Have you ever wondered about the dynamics of the education setup in our country and why our universities lag behind other countries? Can entrepreneurship in this sector transform this? How is such a startup coping with today’s unprecedented crisis?
This week, host Sucheta Hota sits down with a young dynamic entrepreneur, Abhishek Anand, Founder of Eptitude.
Eptitude is a learning institution dedicated to coaching students for business management, law, hotel management, and mass communication entrance exams. In this episode, he speaks candidly about his journey from being an IIM Bangalore graduate to founding an education startup, on to navigating the present crisis. He deconstructs the causes behind the poor rankings of Indian universities in surveys like the Times Higher Education (THE) and presents a compelling argument for understanding local paradigms, to effectively change the sector.
Marg Advisory Services · Episode 1 – Abhishek Anand
Transcript
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks:
Hello everyone and welcome. I am Sucheta Hota bringing you the maiden edition of Touchstone Talks. Touchstones is the thought leadership blog of Marg Advisory Services. We are a management consulting firm based out of Bhubaneshwar, India. At Touchstones, we explore thought leadership in different areas, spanning Industry, Government, Non-Government entities, and more. We aim to understand more of the world we inhabit today through the eyes and voices of individuals who are leading change in different areas and how they envision it in the coming days. And so, we have with us today, Abhishek Anand, who is an educationist and entrepreneur. He is a Shri Ram College of Commerce graduate and an alumnus of IIM, Bangalore. He’s the founder of Eptitude, a test prep company. He takes great pride in shaping the careers of young India and helping them to achieve their academic and professional aspirations. He has mentored over 500 students to top 5 IIMs, let’s hear from him, his plans for the future, reflections on where we are in the education system and how he envisages the future of learning.
Hi Abhishek! Welcome to Touchstone Talks.
Abhishek:
Hi Sucheta!
Sucheta, Touchstone Talks (01:15):
So, Eptitude. Tell us a little more about Eptitude and how you were inspired to start this venture?
Abhishek (01:18):
Thanks a lot, Sucheta, for having me on this podcast. Yeah. So, Eptitude is basically a test preparation company and we coach students for various entrance examinations, like, both postgraduate and undergraduate, like CAT, GMAT, right, in terms of your postgraduate examination. Undergraduate examinations would be law entrance examinations like CLAT, ILAT, LSAT, and then you have STTS and ITM, Indore, business management programs. So, this is, this is what we do.
Uh, I think your second question was how did we, how were we inspired to start it. That is what you asked. We are two partners in this, so I can just talk for myself. So, for me, it was more like finding a sense of purpose, right. So, when I did my MBA from IIM Bangalore, I was a fresher there, so I had not gained any work experience. So, for me, to get into IIM was a goal in itself. And beyond that, I had not envisioned, right?
Sucheta, Touchstone Talks: Right.
Abhishek:
So, up till IIM Bangalore, everything was fine. I got into SRCC. One goal accomplished, felt good about it. Got into IIM, the second goal accomplished, felt good about it. But after that, suddenly I realized that you know, I didn’t have a goal or whatever I was achieving it was not that I had set for myself. That though I was enjoying my corporate experience, but somehow, I was missing that satisfaction, that sense of accomplishment, right. So, I started exploring that, would I like to continue doing this? Or would I like to do something on my own? Maybe if I do something on my own, I’ll start getting that sense of purpose. So, I thought what would I like do; there were a couple of things which I lined up in a typical Indian fashion, plan A, plan B, plan C.
Sucheta, Touchstone Talks (03:24):
Absolutely.
Abhishek (03:25):
Yeah. So, education was in plan A; that maybe I would like to do this because I had been an academician all my life. So, once I thought on this then I thought, okay, before taking the plunge, let me just freelance and see whether I’ll enjoy doing it or not. So, I took a session at a coaching centre. I took a two hour session and I kind of enjoyed that session. I loved that session, you know. And in a very, let’s say symbolic language, I must say that I felt alive, after taking that two hours of the session, especially after the interaction with the students, once my session got over. So, I got a feeling that maybe this is something I would like to continue to do. And because this was a change for me, so I wanted to make sure that this is something which I can continue at a sustained level for a longer period of time.
So, I continued with that coaching centre for two, three months on a part-time basis, you know, just to make sure that this is something that I would like to do, for let’s say at least 10 years down the line. So it was positive reinforcement. I enjoyed doing it. So I thought that you know, that I should take the plunge then. So, having decided on that, we took the plunge and we got into the coaching industry. For the first four-five years we had a franchisee of a brand and then we started our own brand by the name Eptitude. So that was the journey.
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks (4:49):
And it’s been how many years, five years now?
Abhishek (4:50):
Five years with Eptitude. Overall, it would be nine years in the coaching industry.
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks (4:57):
Right. So, could you share some of your significant successes and learnings with Eptitude?
Abhishek (5:05):
I think for any fresh player, the success will lie in the success of the students. Yeah. For me, the biggest success is that any student who has studied with us eventually did not end up hating the subject. For me, that is the biggest success. Because at times when people let’s say they’re taking coaching for some course, the teaching methodology is such that the child ends up hating a particular stream, right. So, this has never happened in our case, we are able to generate interest in the subject. And I think that’s got to do with the industry experience that we had, before you know, getting into the coaching industry. So, let’s say when we are teaching in the class also, most of our examples were industry relevant. So we were able to connect with the students.
So, I think the biggest success was this that the students liked what they were studying with us and obviously after that we had our students making it to top colleges. I mentioned few courses that we prepare students for – so in any of the course, you talk of the top institute, you will have our students there – be it top IIMs, be it national law schools, be it international education, you name any course that we have taught, we have our students in a premier college. And again, more than that, that we have students in a premier college if I take the average of my batch, let’s say 100 students who were studying with us – we could roughly say that 60 to 70% of students get into, let’s say, a premier college. So that has been the major success for us.
Learnings: so far as learnings are concerned, I think teaching makes you a lot of, let’s say, a sensitive person because unless you connect with your student, I don’t think you’ll be able to convey the message or deliver your classes. I think it has made me more sensitive and empathetic to some extent. You need to understand your students. And the students are different. So, you know if I’m taking a class of let’s say, 40 students, you can actually break it down into five or six different groups and you can’t just have the same methodology. That is the challenging part. You are teaching 40 students, let’s say a couple of students are from IITs, so they are at a certain level when they come for the class. Then you have certain students who are from a tier 4 college, they are at a different level. And then how do you manage your content, because if you go really fast, then the tier 4 student may not be able to relate. And if you go really slow, then the IIT student will not connect with you. So learning was that different students, different levels, you might have the same message, but the delivery style has to change according to the student. So yeah, this was some of the key learning.
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks (08:00):
Right. I think it’s a mix of both personal satisfaction as well as, you know, the fact that your students are doing well and reaching their goal and making it to the….
Abhishek (08:12):
Yeah, Sucheta. And the thing is, see, when you’re working in a company, you are a star one day, you’re a failure another day. That’s competitive, and that’s fair, that’s fine. Nothing to complain about it. But here, we are… it’s like a family, it’s like you are building a family. So, there’s the student, there are lots of students who study with us at let’s say Class XII level to get into let’s say after Class XI college, then they are with us during the college level. And then they are with us even at the postgraduate level. They were mentees in Class XII and now they are mentoring our students in Class XII. So, it’s a network of students which we’re creating, it’s a family. And the satisfaction is immense. The kind of satisfaction that you get, the kind of respect that you get from the students, I think yes, that leads to personal satisfaction.
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks (09:02):
That’s great to hear Abhishek. Moving on to current times, you know the pandemic has affected businesses everywhere, and I’m sure there have been changes at Eptitude and in the business that you are in. So how have you adapted to this change?
Abhishek (09:24):
See, for us, it was not that difficult to adapt, you know, because even when the things were fine, we were thinking of scaling up and scaling up with quality, right – so when you want to scale up in the coaching business, you have a couple of options, which is open up one more centre, but the more centres you open, you are compromising in quality, because then you have to hire different teachers. And how do you ensure that quality? So, we had decided that we won’t scale up in this fashion, instead, we will use technology and try to reach a maximum number of students, with the same set of teachers. So that is what we were thinking. And that’s why we were investing in technology and we had built our in-house studio to reach out to our students. So, when this a pandemic happened, when this virus thing happened, we were sort of ready. Because even the top players were taking classes on, let’s say your licensed software, which is Zoom, it’s quite famous. We had our own setup. So, for us to adapt was not that difficult, to be honest, to adapt was not difficult because already in the lines of adapting technology in our business model, it was not that difficult for us.
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks (10:38):
Okay. Now moving on to a discussion away from your business, you know, a larger discussion, which basically is – what do you foresee as a result of this pandemic, the changes in the learning and education sector in the coming days.
Abhishek (10:55):
See, I think the offline model will stay for good. Whichever industry you look at, you know the technological improvement, advancement, you know the larger share of the pie, actually, the whole category grows first of all. So, I think, with technology, the pie increases, and the share of the pie goes to the players who are using technology, but the conventional players also stay in the market. There are lots of industries to be compared with. You have your Kindle but there are people who are reading your traditional way also. With the advent of Kindle, the overall market has grown, right, but the earlier market is also there. You have, let’s say, a Netflix, and you have DVD players and whatever it is, but you have your other conventional cinema theatre also. So, both are growing. I think there would be a hybrid model, in which your overall access to quality education will increase. So the pie size will increase and people who can adapt or can use technology, they’ll have a larger share of the pie, but the offline business model will also be there. So, I think it will be more of a hybrid model with online taking the larger share but offline players would also stay.
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks (12:21):
Right. Now, India has the third largest higher education system in the world. It has more than 600 universities and, maybe 33,000 colleges and around 20 million students. However, very few of our universities and academies rank high in the world university rankings. Why do you think it is so? What needs to change?
Abhishek (12:47):
Okay. I think there could be two ways in which this question could be answered. One is – do we need to change and you know, come, chase the world rankings; and second is, if yes, then how do we do that? So, I think your question is primarily the second part, that if you were to improve the world ranking, how do we do that?
Because for the world ranking, the top-ranking agencies, follow the western idea of education, the goals that western colleges pursue. So obviously the parameters are inclined towards those. Establishing that we want to pursue that, we first need to understand the parameters that are being used by such agencies.
If I take your QS world ranking system, which I think they say that they’ve come up with the list and our Indian institutions are featuring in there – but the best rank is of IIT Bombay. And I think it is 172. Not even in the top 100.
I think, first, we need to understand the parameters that these agencies use. These are more or less, common across the topic. If I look at QS, they take a few parameters. One is academic reputation, second is employer reputation, third is faculty to student ratio, fourth is citation per faculty, and fifth, sixth is international faculty and international students.
Obviously, we would fare extremely low on international faculty and international students. But the weightage and the criteria would be around 10%. So now let’s say if I were to look at the criteria where we don’t fare well, I would just give you an example of IIT Bombay. And let’s say if we were to be in the top hundred, I compare IIT Bombay with rank#100 college, which is UNAM.
In academic reputation, UNAM gets a point of 37.3 and we get a point of 20. Employer reputation we are almost the same. We lose marks on the faculty-student ratio. And primarily we are losing on academic reputation. If you look at citation per faculty, our citation per faculty which is 20% weightage, and citation per faculty to some extent is an indication of the quality of faculty; now in citation per faculty, some of our colleges are actually beating colleges which score in top 50. Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore gets a 100% score on that.
Coming back to the question, why we fare low on the ranking is – the biggest criteria, which has the highest weightage, is academic reputation; we fare extremely low in that aspect, the 40% weightage. IIT Bombay has a score of 20, which is on the lower side. Now, why does this happen?
Again, I will take some time, Sucheta, I think I’ll take the liberty of time to explain this, because I want to be objective on this answer, because most of the time people think that if the ranking is not great, maybe we are not doing things well. So first of all, we need to understand the parameters, right? So now, academic reputation depends on perception. So how is the score calculated? A survey is sent across to approximately one lakh academician spread over 144 countries. And then they rate on different dimensions, the universities. So basically, it means that the active academicians, one lakh, those people are not aware of IIT Bombay, either that could be the case or they don’t rate it well, high. That is the reason why we are faring low on academic reputation. But our citation per faculty is better than top 50 colleges. So somehow, this does not connect. That when, whatever faculty we have, the citation – on that score we are faring well than even the top 50 colleges, why we are not that great in the academic reputation?
Then we need to understand academic reputation. Now, academic reputation gives a lot of weightage to research. This is one area where India, as compared to your top colleges, is not doing that great. Our R&D budget is not even 1% of GDP, which is one of the lowest amongst the emerging economies. There are not many incentives for our professors or teachers to do research work. So, this is one area where we are doing not that great. Now let’s say I take the top 5 colleges. Normally, when we talk about world ranking, we talk about QS or THE. Now there is a second institute that ranks universities on the basis of their research work. Let’s say I compare with China. In China, the Tsinghua University that is featuring in QS ranking, its ranking is 15 in QS. Now, FIR, which is another rating agency that rates the research agencies of a country. Now Tsinghua University within China ranks 3 in its research. The next best university in China in QS is Peking University. Its rank is 23. Peking University in FIR ranks at 4th. You do the same exercise for the United States, for the United Kingdom, or for any other country. One trend which will come is – the universities, which rank well in such QS or THE, they are also the top ranking within the research department. If you were to rank them on how well they are doing in research, they would be the top in their country.
Now let’s look at our scenario, India scenario; the best is IIT Bombay. IIT Bombay ranks 172, but for India, it is number one because it is the first university featuring there. Now, could you guess, can you just take a guess where would we rate IIT Bombay in the FIR rankings, and this FIR ranking is of India only – Indian institutes that are engaged in research. Take a guess. Do you think it features in the top 5?
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks (19:12)
It should.
Abhishek (19:13):
It doesn’t. Do you think it features in the top 10? No, it doesn’t. So, IIT Bombay in FIR ranking falls in number 15. So, our university that falls is the best in QS rating within the research segment, it is at number 15. I think the University of Oxford, that is number 5 in QS ranking, in FIR rating, is number one. So, what comes out from this is that in our education set up, research is different, it’s separated from teaching. Now there could be a strategic reason for that. Or there could be some other reason for that, but this is the reason why we don’t farewell. That our universities are not investing that much time on research. Our research output is not great. Therefore, on the academic reputation, you take any of the ratings, this is the area where we fall.
The other area where we fall is your faculty to student ratio. So again, if I were to compare this with UNAM, which is at rank number 100 – if we’re to come at par with UNAM, all we need to do is we need to hire 112 teachers. We do this and we come at par with the 100th ranking college. So, there are ways also, by which we can improve our ranking. The whole point is our education policy, whatever education policy that we have, do we want to align that to western goals or not? So, I think that is a larger question to be answered. We need to do that. And obviously there are objective things that you can do.
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks (21:00):
That’s a very balanced and well-researched answer, Abhishek. And, of course, this is a larger discussion too. You did mention earlier the importance of technology in the education sector and those who adapt to it will be the ones who will be able to thrive better. So, companies like Byju’s, Udemy, Khan Academy, do they make coaching institutions irrelevant?
Abhishek (21:31):
Uh, no, I don’t think so. I don’t think so. If at all. The basic business model of a coaching institute is, let’s say, a coaching institute starts with star teachers. So people get to know that this teacher is amazing, if I study with this teacher, I will convert my exam right. And word of mouth happens and then the brand grows and then you start up your centres. But once you start up your centres, you’re scaling up, but your quality is compromised. It’s difficult to maintain the same level of teaching the way you started. Right? So, in the case of Byju’s, Udemy, and the other player that you mentioned, Khan Academy, they can maintain the same level of quality. So, when they’re scaling up, they’re not compromising on the quality. In fact, in their case, the larger the scale, the better the technology they can use, they have a higher sample size.
So, for them with scale comes of better quality. With coaching institutions, with scale, it’s a big challenge to come up with the quality, right? So, if at all, if at all these players would stop, or prevent the growth of not-that-great coaching institutes. So this is what they do because it is putting pressure on people who are not that great, who just take franchisee of a bigger brand and get students. It would put pressure on them because now a student will have a choice: that okay, if I’m getting better quality at a lower price, then why do I need to go to a, let’s say, a physical coaching centre? So, students who are serious, obviously they will evaluate their choices. But out of the experience, I can tell you that a large chunk of the student community is a typical social animal that goes to a coaching institute, as in for them, it’s an outing kind of a thing also. This segment for which it is to go out, to meet people, as after class, they hang out, right; so for this segment, the coaching centre will never lose its charm. And that is a sizeable chunk. That’s a sizeable chunk.
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks (23:31)
Like you said you know, you should have a balance of both – using technology as well as having a physical setup where students can come and spend their time as well as do the learning that is necessary. Right. One last question Abhishek. As an entrepreneur yourself and dealing with the crisis and uncertainty currently, what are the three things you would advise young entrepreneurs and startups to do? They are having a tough time right now.
Abhishek (24:04):
Okay. Advice would be a bigger word. I won’t even say suggestions. I would like to just share my feelings about the topic. I think when you become an entrepreneur, the fundamental thing is why do you want to become an entrepreneur? If it is to make money then I think entrepreneurship is not the place. Eventually, you make money but I think if you listen to successful entrepreneurs, they enter into space to solve a problem. If that is the fundamental thing, if that is what the fundamental goal is, then you won’t take this as a crisis, you take it as another problem. So now my students cannot come to me, how do I take this education to them? So this becomes a problem. So I think in the entrepreneur’s life, there will always be a problem, right? So, it’s not a crisis, it’s a problem. So if you have entered the field to solve a problem, it’s one more problem, right. So how do you fix it? And you get your kick out of it. So this is one. So I think, first of all, the approach is, I want to become an entrepreneur to solve a problem. So that is one. If that happens, then the crisis won’t bother you. Right. Second is, I think your team is important. So try to build a team that shares your vision. I don’t mean by that you get yes people, yes men around you that always say yes to you, but yeah, the common vision that you have, the values that you have of the organization, try to build a team that resonates with that, because that goes a long way. Now, just to give you my example, during the time of crisis, the bond amongst us, you know, has become even stronger. So, instead of falling apart, we are like sharing each other’s responsibilities. So I think that happens because all of us share the same vision, the same goal.
You said three, so I will come with the third thing also, which is, I think once you stay humble as an entrepreneur, you should stay humble, that definitely helps because that helps you to adapt. That definitely helps you to adapt. I might be digressing here, I never liked the campaign that save the earth or save trees, or save the planet; this, because to some extent that showed our arrogance, that you know we can, we can save this planet. Now the planet has shown us, that you know, if you want to save yourself, stay inside, I can take care of myself. So, I think yes, as an entrepreneur, your fundamental thing is, you have joined this space to solve a problem, do that, and stay humble. Stay humble. Yeah.
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks (26:34):
Thank you so much Abhishek. Thank you for your time. And your inputs.
Abhishek (26:38):
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Sucheta, for giving me this opportunity. Yeah. Thank you.
Sucheta: Okay, bye.
Sucheta, Touchstones Talks (26:46):
For our listeners, this talk will be available on our website www.margadvisory.com, SoundCloud, and with links to it on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Please do not fail to share, like, and comment. Until next time do keep visiting Touchstones, take care.
About our guest
Abhishek Anand is a SRCC graduate and an alumnus of IIM-Bangalore. He is the founder of Eptitude, a Test Prep company. Recently he launched his own YouTube channel Let Go of Inhibitions. The channel aims at creating a knowledge repository covering various career streams to help the student community. He takes pride in mentoring over 500 students to top 5 IIMs. He has authored a book in collaboration with Wiley Publishing “ Acing WAT, GD’s & Interviews for IIM’s”. He is an active theater enthusiast and has had the opportunity to work with some veteran directors like Kichenassamy Madavane and Yuvraj Sharma. He portrayed the role of Macbeth which was appreciated by theater patrons of Delhi. Abhishek is now using theater exercises to instill confidence amongst the youth.
About our host
Sucheta Hota is an HR practitioner with 24 years of experience in HR advisory. She has worked with the Big 4s for more than two decades and has had the opportunity to work across multinationals, MSME’s, multilaterals, bilaterals, and NGOs. Her area of expertise lies in HR Transformation and Change Management on a large scale. Her work spans across India and Asia where she has advised clients on complex client issues. She has co-authored several articles on HR – Transformation which can be found in the public domain. She also pursues her interests in the world of performing arts and is a regular on the theatre circuit in NCR.
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the content belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author’s employer, organisation, committee, or other related groups or individuals, including Marg Advisory Services.
