Jan 21, 2010 Edserv acquires SchoolMATE

• Acquisition to provide additional points of presence in 70 schools
• idhyadhana Academy Expansion on target with the ERP acquisition

As part of its overall strategy to provide Industry Demand Aligned Education (IDEA) through the Progressive Learning Model (PLM) for school students through its Vidhyadhana Academy and in line with the overall plans to expand its presence into over 250 schools, Chennai based Education and Placement Company EdServ has announced that it has signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to acquire Hyderabad based SchoolMATE [School Management At Ease], a CRM and ERP software solution provider for Schools. SchoolMATE also has a College management module called CollegeMATE.

Presence in over 100 schools

EdServs offerings to schools through the Vidhyadhana Academy includes providing Academic support, School Management support, and Student Performance Management support services through which the company will provide multi-dimensional skill development, leading to industry orientation of these students at K-12 itself. Through the acquisition of SchoolMATE, EdServs Vidhyadhana Academy will have overall points of presence in over 100 schools including 30 schools that it has already signed up since its launch in November 2009.

ERP for School Management

The acquisition will enable the implementation of a Progressive Learning Model in the Vidhyadhana run Schools, where the company will improve the technology infrastructure, teacher empowerment and support at classes, and the overall student performance enhancement through tracking and analysing every individual student.

SchoolMATEs ERP generates over 250 MIS reports and helps management, teachers, students and parents to retrospect and improvise. It houses GPS / GIS technology apart from RFID / Biometric / sms methods to track and monitor student homework, logistics, and attendance, apart from over 15 modules computerising all academic and administrative functions of a school online. With SchoolMATE, Vidhyadhana shall employ class support system for teachers to empower them deliver meaningful sessions with the help of state-of-the-art automation.

Commenting on the growth strategy, S. Giridharan, Chairman and CEO, EdServ said, EdServ believes that doing everything right at schools enables a more meaningful career engagement for students when they grow up. SchoolMATE strengthens our Vidhyadhana Academys plans to implement the Progressive Learning Model at Schools to achieve career mapping and seeding in every student.

The acquisition of SchoolMATE ERP offering is strategic consideringVidhyadhana endeavour to adopt, run, and manage around 250 schools in the next 12 months. This provides us an immediate opportunity to upgrade 70 schools into the Vidhyadhana Academy and to implement our patented IDEA in each of these schools. With this acquisition, we expect to reach our EdSchool revenue guidelines with over Rs.40 crores out of school services in the next 12months.

On SchoolMATE acquisition by EdServ, Raghu Rajagopal, Director of SchoolMate representing the Chennai Fund said, SchoolMATE and CollegeMATE solutions have helped educational institutions to automate critical processes that intersects the teachers, students and the parents thereby improving the operational efficiencies. We are excited that this strategic acquisition will enable EdServ to focus on enhancing the learning outcome in schools and colleges through the SchoolMate and CollegeMate platform.

Last month, EdServ announced being awarded VTP (Vocational Training Provider) status for the Southern Region through which the company expects to train around 3Lakh unemployed and underemployed people.

EdServ provides Online Tuition Services (2tion.com) for college and school students, helps Engineering Students pass exams through the in-campus and outside campus mode and offers placement services to students and corporate.

EdServ achieved revenues of Rs.15.51 and Net Profit of Rs.5.64crores for 3rd Quarter ended 31st December 2009.