CEO – interview
Introduction
if you’re at a gem school it sounds like
there could be potential Rises coming
but that is not the case in every school
in fact within hours of that index being
released yesterday the Indian High group
of schools confirmed it would be
freezing fees at all three of its Dubai
campuses for a sixth consecutive year
and to find out more I am actually
delighted to be joined in the studio
right now by Punit vasu who is the chief
executive of the Indian High group of
schools thank you so much for joining me
sir great pleasure to have you with usor
thank you for having me Ramadan Karim
once again yeah Ramadan kareim in indeed
to you only a few more days in which we
can say that um tell us like you made
How did you make the decision
this decision super quickly like the the
statement came out almost as fast as the
kda’s
index how did you make this call I think
there’s a lot of thought that goes
before we make such a decision so while
the statement would have come out uh in
line with what the KD announced I think
there’s a very very strong sense of
fiscal discipline that we adopt at our
group of schools and as I’ve mentioned
to you uh and many of our stakeholders
before we are we remain true to our
purpose what are we as a group of
schools we are a non-for-profit
community group of schools we
established in
1961 so we pretty much precede the
formation of the US AE um as a
federation right and true to our core of
providing outstanding quality affordable
education accessible to the Indian
diaspora we need to take a strong hard
look at ourselves say what does it mean
to our stakeholders so we are very very
firm our Board of Governors our trustees
are extremely firm uh in the belief that
education needs to be an affordable
accessible um commodity so it’s probably
the sixth year uh in running that we
have not uh increased the fees Georgia
you mentioned that the cage3 allows
schools to increase fees by up to uh 5%
as a non-for-profit community group of
schools we are actually eligible for an
even greater
increase that’s interesting how does how
Are you eligible for an even greater increase
does that work because that’s something
that wasn’t sort of outlined in the
index for journalists correct so I think
as a non-for-profit group uh given that
we have a special status we are eligible
to apply for an increase based on rating
and our status so it’s a very
interesting observation that we are yet
choosing not
to uh apply even for the Baseline yet
alone uh be eligible for even greater
How are you covering costs
increase now your parents must be
absolutely thrilled and every time I
speak to anyone who is involved in a
nonpr not for-profit school group I wish
that my children went to a not for
profit School group um because of course
the emphasis is entirely different
you’re not trying to make money for
shareholders you’re not trying to make
money how nevertheless are you covering
costs because over the ne the last six
years they must have gone up absolutely
I think we live in a highly inflation
environment uh we know cost of living
has gone up we got to look after uh our
staff uh we got fantastic uh appraisal
and uh compensation uh programs in place
and I think we focus very strongly on
the growth lever think Dubai is a great
City uh right one of the fastest growing
uh cities in the world uh and there’s no
dirt of uh Learners in fact we have a
very very strong uh waiting list so we
are focusing uh heavily on the growth
story um of Dubai uh and focusing on
adding capacity right so that’s one big
uh Factor the other lever uh which we
very very keen to always ex exercise is
the efficiency l so we have 13,000
Learners almost 50,000 stakeholders if
you include parents grandparents and
extended families and that’s a pretty
sizable chunk so our approach uh as a
group has been to have very very strong
long-term levels of commitment with our
vendors for example we have signed
long-term uh maintenance contracts uh
with a very very reputed vendor we kind
of pinged and pinned down those costs we
have done something similar for property
and all Risk insurance so we are working
with internationally accredit and
approved vendors and giving them a
long-term commitment that we will do
business with them and that is helping
us manage costs and almost defy
inflation I mean what’s amazing is that
Are you considering increasing capacity
it’s a completely different model to
most of the schools here in the UAE and
I mean Dubai specifically is the am that
we’re talking about now but you say you
have waiting lists so you could put your
fees up you know the natural sort of
situation is that you know when demand
is high then that is when you can make
things more expensive but nevertheless
you’re still choosing not to in instead
it sounds like you’re considering
increasing capacity absolutely so like I
mentioned we have a very benevolent uh
Board of uh trustees group that strongly
believes that education as a commodity
actually has inelastic demand doesn’t it
right it’s very sticky right so if you
actually analyze our commitment to our
Learners parents really don’t have a
choice of being able to move if the fees
go up so we have a deep sense of
commitment that actually there’s no
choice unlike other goods and services
where you can actually move right so if
your rent goes up you can look for
different accommodation you know if
there’s any other commodity but
education how often do you hear people
saying well my fee has gone up and I’m
actually going to change my child school
next day and then keep changing it so we
actually believe that we’re accountable
and responsible to our Learners we’re
not doing the community of favor it’s
actually ingrained in our DNA we owe
that level of commitment accountability
and service to our Learners because we
understand that parents really don’t
have a choice and if you look at Dubai’s
vision of d33 and doubling Dubai’s
population by
2033 then unless players and groups like
us show up to the party and show that
level of commitment to
Dubai you know it’s not going to be easy
Because unless we cater to that strata
of population we won’t be helping to buy
grow so I think we have a strong sense
of commitment to the city uh to the
Emirate to the country and we all need
to play our role together and when I
spoke about economies of scale earlier I
think our group is more than willing to
actually share our learnings and
actually the more the mar the more the
the the people and more schools want to
join us in creating this massive Group
which has economies of scale we’d be
happy to extend that to others as well
very interesting indeed uh thank you so
much for joining us in the studio uh it
was a it was a very late request because
this report came through quite late in
the afternoon um but punet was ready to
come into the studio and do this
interview so thank you so much for your
time really really appreciate it thank
you thank you so much for having us once
again pleasure punet Vu there chief
executive of the Indian High group of
schools
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