Canadian global school to come up in Chennai

This is a first-of-its-kind school coming up in the metro, where the foundation is being laid for a campus that will provide education from kindergarten to Class III. 

“We are engaged in discussions with the educational authorities to formalise our entry. The registration process for the school has been done and we are awaiting the statutory clearances,” Bharathi told DTNext, as he took us through the blueprint of the educational venture. 

Sensing the huge “untapped” opportunity in education in this country, he said the number of providers was less. 

“In China, there are 100 Canadian schools and our curriculum has a distinctive edge over schools in the US and UK. We believe education offers a platform to build a great relationship between the two countries. Also, our entry will mean the scope to introduce Canadian accredited schools in India as we are keen to contribute to the future of India,” said the entrepreneur, who started the three-member Canadian partnership named Richmond Assets and Holdings (RAH). 

He went on to add that RAH is an alternative investment group that targets high growth sectors between Canada and emerging markets, generally focusing on  three asset classes - clean tech, infrastructure, and education. 

With plans to fully manage the operations, the infrastructure aspect of the school has been outsourced. 

“We are investing 15 million Canadian Dollars in the operations and our plan is to set up 10 such schools in various parts of the country within a few years. We would like to first gauge the market but we do not want it to be a factory-kind of school as our objective is to provide high quality education,” Bharathi said, unwilling to divulge the details about the pact with the domestic business partner. 

A sum of 50 to 100 million Canadian dollars has earmarked for its future expansion programme that includes Coimbatore, Kochi and Hyderabad. RAH has identified 42 cities where it feels its school model is viable. 

Unlike other international school, this one would be staffed 100 per cent by expats as the entire operations will be manned by RAH. 

“We will be providing education at half of what is being charged by reputed international schools in the city,” he said, adding bringing the teachers from Canada would involve a huge outlay.