Kidzee plans more pre-school centres across India

Homegrown pre-school chain Kidzee, owned by education company Zee Learn, has planned to expand its range of schools, by adding 300-400 facilities each year, as it taps the pre-school and early childhood care and education (ECCE) needs of the various towns and cities in India.

The company currently boasts of a wide network of more than 1,500 schools in over 550 cities, having signed up 509 centres for FY 2015.

According to Zee Learn Head (Marketing and Innovation) Abhinav Upadhyay, “Kidzee remains focused on nurturing the ‘unique potential’ in every child. Our primary focus area is on the critical age group of 0-6 years in children, when 90% of the brain’s development takes place. Kidzee is also involved in making people aware of early childhood needs, and also provides for the same.”

In terms of opening schools, Kidzee follows an all-franchise model, wherein the franchisee will be required to invest in setting up her school, while the company provides all the required teaching aids and infrastructure standards. “Each school may be built over a minimum area of 2,500 sq feet, and will entail an investment of Rs 10-15 lakh, which will be borne by the franchisee. According to our revenue model, Kidzee shares the fees collected on enrolments with the franchisee,” Kidzee Business Head Sukhvinder Singh Bindra told Deccan Herald.

As per policy, Kidzee allows only women to become franchisees, with the staff at each schools also comprising only women. “Each of our pre-school has been mandated to be run by women, since we believe that women, when given the right responsibility and adequate training, respond to early childhood needs better,” Bindra said.

Through the said franchise model, Kidzee has been able to create 1,500 women entrepreneurs, who are specially trained by the company to tend to the young ones. Meanwhile, for its students, the schools also integrate state-of-the-art technologies as part of their teaching tools, such as audio visual aids and tablets.

There are 150 million children in the ages of 0-6 in India, and many towns have not even come across a concept called ‘pre-school’. Around 90% of the said Rs 13,000-crore category is unorganised. “Yet, even in small towns, there is acceptance for our products, and we’ve varied fee structures for our different markets,” Upadhyay said.