Daybreak - Aakash Chaudhry made millions off the IIT craze. His new target: international schools’ unhappy parents

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

The landscape is pretty bleak. In the race to produce more Ivy League-worthy students, Indian schools are selectively opting to teach IB. Teachers, in turn, find themselves shifting between the Cambridge and IB syllabi, often trying out things they aren’t trained for. Students and parents, meanwhile, are running in circles trying to find an able tutor after spending Rs 5–20 lakh on their child’s education. It helps no one that there are just a handful of dedicated, IB-trained teachers in the whole of India who can help students with the demanding curriculum.Enter Sparkl Edventure.With Sparkl, the former CEO of Aakash Institute is betting on these schools' inadequacies and our obsession with private tutoring. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two hereHave a question for The Ken's next event on health, fitness and wellness? Here's your chance to help us shape the conversation: https://theken.typeform.com/to/bZhqWl2g

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too? It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the same. secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they managed to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into.

to the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert, as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcast. or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode.

Like any anxious parent, Akash Shoudri was worried when his 15-year-old son was planning a big move to another school right after his class 10 examinations. After all, the switch would mean jumping from the Cambridge curriculum to the International Baccalaureate, or IB. Turns out Akash is not alone. Hundreds of parents across the country whose kids are making the same transition share his fears. And it isn't so much about whether their kids will adapt.

It's actually more because international schools just aren't what they used to be. Much of this is from hearsay and experience where they send their student to these international schools, which cost a lot, especially if it's IB. And then the teaching is not what it should be. in that it is, it still functions like any other CBC or ICC school. That's my colleague Atul Krishna. He covers education and ed tech for the ken. Now, Atul found that the general consensus among parents like Akash

is that the IB landscape is pretty bleak. And that's for one very specific reason. So the thing is, it's a, most of the international schools. There are very few international schools. that offer IB in a continuum. In continuum, you mean from primary to all the way to secondary education and higher secondary education. What most international schools do is they have one curriculum.

Usually it's the Cambridge curriculum. And then they implement the IB curriculum in the last two years. So here's how it's been unfolding. In the race to produce more Ivy League worthy students, Indian schools are selectively opting to teach IB. Teachers in turn find themselves constantly code switching between the Cambridge and IB syllabi. This neither here nor their approach ends up taking a toll on students who invariably have to opt for tutions to catch up.

And that's where Akash comes in. You see, Akash is not like other parents. Because he's also the former CEO of Akash Institute, which coaches over 250,000 students every year for national entrance examinations. His worries about his son's future in an IB ended up inspiring his second innings in the tutoring business.

Enter Sparkle Adventure. So the idea came from the fact that so he told me that there are these islands of excellences where across the country there are an IB tutor there and IB tutor here that those are very good. So his idea was to sort of bring them all together in an online space because then then any student anywhere can access it.

The seven-month-old tutoring platform is backed by the likes of Zomato founder Dipinder Goel and Zerodha Chief Executive Nitin Karmath. Now, this time around, Akash has a point to prove. After all, by the time, the now crumbling ed tech bijews acquired it in 2021, Akash Institute had over 300 centres and an annual revenue of over 9.30 crore rupees. It ended up sagging under the weight of Baiju's litany of truck. So with Sparkle, he wants to reclaim his legacy in education. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken.

I'm your host Rahil Filippos and I don't chase the new cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Sigda Sharma and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Tuesday, the 27th of May. Okay, so here's the 101 on IB schools in case you weren't lucky enough to go to one yourself. For starters, there are currently 250 schools in India that are affiliated to or are in the process of affiliating with IB. At least 150 of them popped up in the last seven years. But only fewer than 50 of those schools have actually adopted IB curriculum for all their students,

meaning a primary year's program or PYP for students age 3 to 11 and middle years program or NYP for students aged 11 to 16. So how does it work? Well, in several of these schools, they'll offer a diploma program or DP, which is the IB equivalent of a higher secondary degree. Everyone else, meanwhile, follows the Cambridge curriculum. Now, IB is far more flexible and also allows schools to decide which textbooks to use and how. The onus then is on schools to train their teachers who have no choice but to keep code switching between the two. And that is where they end up failing.

So what these schools do is they only opt for IB curriculum in the last two years. Which means that a teacher whose teaching is usually familiar with the Cambridge curriculum, which is completely different from the way that IB teaches. And so they have to, like you said, code switch to a different curriculum. And it's not an easy code switch to do. And that's where teacher training comes in. To help their kids keep up with the IB curriculum, parents are increasingly compelled to opt for the one thing that IB was meant to be the antidote for, tutions.

Now, it pinches more because in addition to spending lakhs of rupees to put their kids in international schools, they're now having to cough up even more to keep them there. But it's also not like schools have it easy either. So it depends on the school and where it is, but largely it is an expensive endeavor. So what these schools tell me is that it takes seven to ten years to break even. It costs, so some schools have even put in around 150 crores in terms of infrastructure and bringing in the teachers and all of that. And actually incorporating IB curriculum is a whole other expense for the school.

That is one of the other reasons why schools only opt the IB curriculum in the last two years. because if you start offering IB from the starting, then it costs a lot. Typically, for the D.P curriculum, the school ends up paying 13,000 USD for the year. And that is a recurring cost. Even if a school has a P.Y.P. curriculum, then I think it comes around $9,000 US dollars or something.

So it adds up annually this is what you have to pay to the IB. In addition to this, teacher training is also. an expensive endeavor. For teacher training in IB, it costs a school anywhere around 40 to 50 lakhs because the training has to come from IB, which is a really

expensive thing. That sometimes the school skip, which is also why the teacher training part lacks and it shows in the kind of teacher-student relation that shows up. That is why there's a gap that exists.

Sometimes the student doesn't understand what the teacher is saying because the teacher is not familiar with the curriculum themselves because they haven't received enough training. Now, when it comes to teachers, there are two options. Either train existing teachers or shell out millions for good ones. In fact, one teacher, Atul spoke to, said there are teachers in Mumbai who get paid around 60 lakh rupees annually, and that's apart from other perks. So most of these schools stick to training their teachers to teach both IB and Cambridge

curricula. How they do it is deeply flawed. One expert Atul spoke to said typically they send heads of departments for expensive training programs and then expect them to relay what they learned to their peers. Kind of like Chinese whispers because it's anyone's guess what the last person in the line actually ends up learning. Now, that's where Sparkle comes in. Stay tuned. Hi, I am briefly interrupting this episode to make a very special announcement. On the 24th, 1st of June, which is a Saturday, the Ken is bringing together an incredible panel for our next event. It's all about health, fitness and wellness, and you will get to hear from Nisha Millett, Olympian Swimmer and Elite Coach, Dr. Syriac Abby Phillips, aka the liver doctor,

the physician-scientist, known for cutting through health misinformation online. And finally, Vireen Shetty, vice chairman at Narayna Health, who's helping shape the future of healthcare delivery here in India. Now, here's where you come in. Do you have a question for our guests? Maybe a fitness myth you want busted or even an unpopular wellness belief that you just swear by. We want to hear all of it.

Help us shape this conversation. Share your questions and thoughts with us by clicking on the link in the show notes. And now let's get back to the episode. Okay, so Atul, what is it that Sparkle is offering that's so revolutionary, right? Like, what is the end goal here? So, Akai's thing was that since,

it is online, they need not restrict themselves to India itself because this problem is not just an Indian problem. It is a problem that can be seen in Southeast Asian countries, in Southeast Asian countries. All of these countries have this focus on coaching and all of that. So this code switching is something that even they struggle with. So Archai's idea was that Eventually they do want to sort of spread across and get into South Asia, Southeast Asia and even the Middle East. Beyond global expansion, his goal with Sparkle isn't just to generate a stream of topers. He wants to bridge learning gaps that so blatantly exist in international schools.

For a lot of students finding a tutor is a real ordeal. They're either too far away or too expensive. So Sparkle offers Ali coaching to both IB and Cambridge students at 1,500 to 2,000 rupees, depending on their greed and subject. On average, a subject requires 8 to 12 hours of tutoring a month and so

a DP student would effectively be paying $12,000 to $24,000 per month on the platform. The other factor that can really drive Sparkles growth is college admissions. You see, most parents send their kids to these schools to help them secure foreign university admissions.

The dream is to land up in Ivy League schools. And students at I.B.E.B. schools have an 18% better chance of getting there. That's also why over 200 IB schools in India offer the diploma program separately. It's cheaper on the pocket, offers a better shot at creating future demand, and not to mention, it is easy publicity. So they have two tracks. One is the IB Cambridge International Admission Track, which is they provide

tutorship for IB, Cambridge, and they also help students with APs and SATs. These are tests that are taken in both U.S. and Canada. If a student scores well in these tests, it augurs well for their university admissions there. The second track is they also focus on the traditional CBSC, ICSC, they provide a neat JET. training. These are for medical and engineering entrance examinations. And even there, they're not trying to sort of bring out topers. It's more they're trying to help the students address whatever learning gap they have. But how do IB schools return to their days of glory? Well, for starters, they have to focus more on a student's overall development. Unfortunately, these schools are very

often run by people who don't quite understand the system. Typically, they're all well acquainted with an Indian board, and the expectation is that they code switch with ease. Naturally, that does not always happen. Right. So what often comes up with schools in I, schools like IBM, Cambridge is the word culture, where what these boards try to essentially do

is develop a culture of critical thinking and create an atmosphere. where the student can freely question the teacher, question what is being taught, and all of that. But sometimes even when an international school has, let's say they have IB from the start, they have continuum, they give proper teacher training, they have all the teachers. But if the head who is running it is from a different institution or it come from a different educational culture like maybe a CBC or an ICCC, then it still doesn't work. out because they bring in the same system of working that they are familiar with, which clashes

with what IB is supposed to be. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast extras. Head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button. on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted by Rahil Filippos and edited by Rajiv Sien.