Schools at Scale

Editor’s note: Yash Mangal is the Director of Mangal Newton School and will be leading Newton Management Company as we expand to new geographies and areas. He will also be regularly contributing to this blog.

Last week, I joined Deepti and Erica for a few days to visit schools in small towns across Rajasthan. As a Director of a school myself, it was an eye-opening and humbling experience. We started Mangal Newton because when we were kids, there were not any good options for schools in Beawar. To be honest, I thought we were pioneers in bringing such innovative learning to such a small town; however, it was interesting to see so many families with a similar vision as our own doing the same for their towns. In fact, we saw the only university level chemistry lab to be installed in a school in Rajasthan in a small town called Jhunjunu.

At the same time, it was often concerning to see families and individuals invest unlimited time and money into just ONE school which will likely be able to serve about 2000 children a year at the most. The investment they are making could easily be shared with other schools in the area such that the innovation can reach children at scale. Newton Management Company aspires to leverage the fact that many families in these small towns are motivated by having a school in their name; but at the same time, aspires to achieve scale by partnering with a number of schools in a community. We look forward to learning from the other education innovators in small towns and partnering with them to achieve our vision.

By Yash Mangal