Educomp solutions announced the launch of India?s first VSAT based Engineering Prep Program. This program will be delivered through an India-wide chain of centres called Leap.
Educomp LEAP will provide students staying in remote towns and semi-urban centres access to the best faculty available in the country.
A large number of students vie for a seat in the IITs and other leading engineering institutes each year. Just last year, over 4 lakh students appeared in IIT-JEE and over 12 lakhs appeared for AIEEE.
While 80% of these students take some form of coaching, a mere 20% of these have access to the top 10 coaching institutes of the country. The rest have to be content with sub-standard coaching due to a variety of reasons, ranging from geographical constraints, cost implications and non-availability of high quality faculty.
The IIT-JEE and AIEEE market size is an estimated Rs.2500 Crores with an average coaching spend of each student being close to Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 50,000 yearly.
Through effective use of VSAT technology, the LEAP Centres will deliver standardized, high quality and cost effective test prep. Keeping in mind the spend patterns in Tier II and III towns, Leap will offer test prep at a fraction of the cost of other comparable centres.
Students at Leap centres will be taught by highly acclaimed and well known faculty. They will have access to high quality study material and a vast library of subject-related, digital teaching resources and most importantly, video archives (in case they miss a class or even for revision purposes).
Educomp IPs such as Smart Class and Smart Assessment System will all be leveraged to provide students with an engaging and effective learning environment.
Speaking at the launch of Educomp Leap, Shantanu Prakash, CEO & MD, Educomp Solutions Ltd said, ?We are consolidating our presence in the supplemental education space, which is currently among the fastest growing segment, with an estimated market size of 8 Billion USD in India alone?.
Abhinav Dhar, Director- K12 Business & Operations, Educomp Solutions said on the occasion, ?LEAP test prep centers will be setup inside school campuses which will allow students to pursue their mainstream school curriculum and test prep courses as an integrated offering right inside their own school premises?.
Educomp will open around 75 Leap centres in the current financial year, located across cities like Guwahati, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Varanasi, Allahabad, Meerut, Patna, Surat, Jammu, Patiala, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Agra, Gurgaon, Sonipat and Ludhiana among others.
By 2012 Leap centres will be present in around 200 cities across India. While focus this year will be on the engineering test prep, plans to roll out other test prep products like Medicine and BBA from 2011-12 are also on the anvil.