Asian Education Group, Promoting Excellence in the Field Of Education
“Too often, many of us live with more awareness of our limitations than our potential. The time to change is now, to know that you’re capable of anything you set your mind to. The only limits they have are the ones you choose to place on yourself.”
Sandeep Marwah
Traditional education in India was and in certain cases is still being considered a teacher-centered delivery of instruction for the students. However, these traditional course-taught learning methods in education are challenged for their efficacy. To start with, education institutes need to ensure that they start getting their students out of their comfort zones.
Sandeep Marwah, Chairman, Asian Education Group after being in the Media Industry for more than 25 years decided to bring in a change to the usual system. Asian Education Group, a result of this initiative is strategically located in Sector 125, Noida, a corporate hub encompassing giants like HCL, Dell, Spice and many more exposing students to the cores of corporate norms in the surroundings.
The Visionary!
Sandeep, Graduated in 1978, had developed a fetish for cinema and formed his theatre group “Diamond’s Club”. He later founded Film City, Noida which today is the fastest growing in the World with 16 studios 350 television channels being telecast to 162 countries 24×7 and employing 17000 media professional in 3 shifts. Once things went smooth, he decided to seize the opportunity to improve the existing system and take the mantle to do this himself.
Business Connect: With multiple schools under the banner, do you believe your challenges were any different from the rest?
Sandeep: The business environment for all the products are different and hence your strategies need to be different as well. In other words, we need a different format for our management students as compared to the law students that would be entirely different as compared to the ones who have enrolled for fashion design and that certainly is not going to be an easy task as such.
Business Connect: What kind of strategies did you deploy to overcome your challenges?
Sandeep: To start with, education institutes needed to ensure that they start getting their students out of the comfort zones so that they are more ready for the future. Overall we need to define good teaching as instruction that leads to effective learning, which in turn means the thorough and lasting acquisition of the knowledge, skills, and values the instructor or the institution has set out to impart. We set out that Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation are key parameters to the learning in our institute.
Business Connect: What all facilities are made available for the students?
Sandeep: To make the students follow the changing trends of the latest technology, 24×7 internet facility is available in the campus with an auditorium for 250 people. There is a Knowledge Resource Centre with over 20000 books, Indoor as well as Outdoor facilities are available and the sports kit is readily available for the games like Basketball, Table Tennis, Snooker, Chess, Badminton etc. and medical facility as well.
Business Connect: The trends keep changing in the market, how do you keep up?
Sandeep: To make the student’s job-ready, Modern Education is shifting from the Traditional System to be more of industry interactive wherein the focus is to inculcate in the students the set of skills that are going to make them employable. We devised programs in order to inculcate skill-based learning so that once they are out of the campus, they would be better equipped to face the real corporate world.
Business Connect: How do you feel is the scenario of the education sector in India?
Sandeep: Skill-based education is somewhat lacking in all the higher education fields in India and management is no different. The focus needs to shift from theoretical knowledge to skill-based education with a more practical and dynamic approach.
Business Connect: How do you ensure the faith of your students in you?
Sandeep: The Changing paradigms have made mandatory for us at Asian Education Group to foster a new breed of professionals and individuals equipped with the right kind of knowledge, domain skills, and ability to think out of the box and at the same time be innovative. We understand that the industry expectations have gone higher and only those who have the right attitude & skills to accept challenges to survive and grow.
Business Connect: How much do you feel is R&D necessary for growth in your vertical?
Sandeep: Asian Education Group does possess a fully functional Research and Development Cell. The Cell is responsible for the formulation of the overall guidelines related to research and publication. The cell undertakes research projects on multi-disciplinary aspects (including Strategy, Entrepreneurship, General Management, and Innovation). It builds research activities through Industry-academia collaboration.
Business Connect: What other milestones have you achieved as yet?
Sandeep: Some of the achievements of the institute include Growth of the Institution, 100 Percent Placements and Successful Startups initiated by the students from the campus. The institution has received many prestigious honors which have added colors to its success some of which include Among India’s 10 Best Business Schools, 2018; Among 10 Best Law Institutes in India, 2018; Best Higher Education Brand, 2017; Excellence in Education, 2017.
Business Connect: What are your plans for the schools in the future?
Sandeep: We are planning to make all the schools even better in terms of Quality Education. These days most of the employers complain that many graduates they hire are deficient in basic skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking that are consistently ranked among the most important goals of an education course.
Business Connect: Do you believe competition is necessary and how much?
Sandeep: Competition works to the advantage of those who are already in the big leagues but creates hurdles for others. At the same time, it keeps education institutions on their toes, forces them to think about new ideas, pay attention to quality teaching, measure what they do and benchmark themselves against their peers. In order to do well, the competition results in various institutions coming up with the results in terms of deliverables.
Business Connect: Apart from work, how else do you like to spend your time?
Sandeep: I feel that a well-written novel can transport you to other realms, while an engaging article will distract you and keep you in the present moment, letting tensions drain away and allowing you to relax. Whenever I am free, I like to read books that spread positivity. I have been an ardent fan of Swami Vivekanand and have read a lot of literature about him. At the same time, I also follow music, my first passion. I believe that music can buoy one’s mood and fend off the depression. Classical music is what I am close to and at the same time, film music is something I can never keep away from it.
Asian Education Group takes necessary steps so as to get the skill levels of the student right above the requisite benchmark so that they perform well. The unique teaching pedagogy as followed in the campus to transform students into intellectual professionals.
“Chances for success, empathy, and discovery are abundant. Inspiration is everywhere you look. The opportunity to be better than you were yesterday is right here, right now.”
Sandeep Marwah
