The Hindu Business Line : Strength in numbers

Can two hours of teaching a week for three months make a difference to a child? Shaarada K. Sriram, Managing Director, Ideal Play Abacus India (IPA) is convinced that it can. She has feedback from thousands of parents who have found tremendous improvement in the overall academic performance of their children after they joined IPA. Shaarada’s organisation has grown rapidly ever since it was founded in July 2003, in Chennai. Today, she and Chitra Ravindran, her busines s partner and Director-Training, and their team of 800 teachers spread across India cater to 50,000 registered students, through 400 centres.

In 2000, when abacus learning centres was a new concept in India, Shaarada decided to check it out as a parent. She was so impressed that she decided to pay Rs 60,000 and become a franchisee. It was a difficult task convincing parents to send their children to try out a new concept, but Shaarada’s door-to-door canvassing helped.

Certified from the British Standards Institute as an ISI 9001:2000 company, IPA is affiliated to Play Abacus Sdn Bhd, Malaysia, and Guang Xi Abacus Association, China. It has also received the Premier Achievement Training Certificate from the Chinese Abacus Association. Shaarada and her directors are trained in advanced concepts such as square-roots, cubic-roots and fractions. All teachers are graduates with good communication skills and love for children. Stevan Tan, President, Play Abacus Sdn Bhd, formulates the curriculum training.

Vedic mathematics

IPA’s success with abacus led to the introduction of Vedic mathematics in 2006. “People came to our centre to enquire about programmes for older children. That was when we came across Vedic mathematics. We took training and employed resource people. Today, we have structured our course for school and college students. Vedic mathematics has proved useful to students appearing in competitive exams where multiple-choice questions are asked. Older children often land up for our summer courses when we complete one or two levels,” says Shaarada.

IPA’s Vedic mathematics programme now covers 125 centres in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Rajasthan. Shaarada and her team recently conducted a five-day workshop for housewives and students at ISRO, Kalpakkam.

A system of mental calculation based on the Atharvaveda, an ancient Vedic text, Vedic mathematics can speed up arithmetic calculation and has applications to more advanced mathematics, such as calculus and linear algebra. Calculations are carried out mentally — students can invent their own methods, there is no one ‘correct’ method.

IPA has grown more by word of mouth, with one franchisee recommending another. IPA centres in Chennai, for example, grew that way — there are 35 now. Mumbai has 70 centres, but two places that are expanding very fast are Pune and Jaipur. The company has popularised abacus and Vedic mathematics in these places, signing up two centres a week on an average in Pune.

Handwriting, colours, memory

A national-level abacus competition in Chennai.

Shaarada started classes in handwriting as a summer activity, and recently launched IPA’s handwriting programme. “Teachers today focus more on reading and mathematics, not on handwriting. It’s a high-tech computer-driven world and kids are now typing more than they are writing. And we are trying to change that,” she explains.

Another recent introduction has been the Creative World of Colours, an arts programme that uses a range of teaching aids and colouring material to stimulate creativity in children. The programme, conducted in association with the Malaysian partner, comprises six levels and includes recognition of colours, shapes, simple drawing and craft, drawing animals and cartoons, mastering colouring skills, and using poster colours. Certificates are presented to students who pass each level.

Shaarada is all set to launch Amazing Memory, a memory improvement programme targeted at school and college students, housewives and corporate heads. Dr Yip, a world memory champion who runs a memory school in Malaysia and China, has formulated the programme.

“Many people have vivid dreams of acquaintances, friends, family members and lovers, of whom they have never thought about for years. Therefore, somewhere in the human brain, there is a vast store of perfect images and associations that do not change with time. With the right trigger, these images and associations can be recalled,” Shaarada points out. She also plans, in association with a Canadian-American company, to introduce a technology-based programme for developing English and brain skills.

Long, hard journey

Winner of the Best Woman Entrepreneur 2006 Award from Franchise India Holdings Ltd, New Delhi, Shaarada owes her success to her excellent network of franchisees and high quality standards.

“We started small and didn’t visualise such growth. Earlier, there was no proper division of work, but now we have a different set of people for each of our products,” she says, adding, “We have made a lot of difference to women too.

Most of our franchisees are women. We have seen the attitudes of these women change, their increased confidence. There’s also satisfaction in seeing children wearing our T-shirts and carrying our bags in different parts of the country.”

IPA demo students have travelled to Jammu in the midst of army tanks and escaped bomb blasts in Assam. Shaarada and Chitra have several stories to narrate, of how they came up the hard way.

Once, while travelling to Bangalore by train for a presentation in Hosur, they had to get down at Krishnarajapuram and take an auto to the venue. There was no time to change clothes or have breakfast and they went straight into the presentation.

Another time, Shaarada had to rush for a demonstration to Amritsar from Delhi. No train ticket was available. She chose to go by the night bus, without her family’s knowledge. “Only Chitra knew. I spent a sleepless night,” she recalls.

Shaarada’s first franchisee was a housewife in Virudhunagar district, Tamil Nadu. That association continues.

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