Raffles Education Corp (Group) had a market capitalisation of $2.78 billion (around Rs 11,000 crore) as on May 26, 2008.
The JV in India is expected to bring in the entire suite of the group's professional development programmes and courses to the country, providing Educomp's large student population with meaningful alternatives when they graduate from high school.
Educomp currently works with six million school students and aims to widen its reach to 10 million students by 2010. Under the terms of the JV, the existing Raffles Design Institute in Mumbai will be merged with the JV operations.
The 50:50 partnership will be rolled out over the next two to three years.
Chew Hua Seng, the founder and CEO of Raffles Education Corp, said, "This venture with Educomp will provide the group with a new growth engine and accelerate our expansion in the fast-growing Indian market. With over 657 million youths, India has the largest population of young people in the world."
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In China, the two companies will partner with each other to bring to China the entire suite of Educomp's extensive programmes and products for K-12 students.
Educomp will leverage its extensive content development capabilities in India, comprising a large team of 400 developers, three development centres and its existing pool of intellectual property of over 16,000 digital curriculum content modules for K-12 schools in China, including its successful Smart_Class programme.
Commenting on the China JV, Shantanu Prakash, Managing director, Educomp, said, "Raffles is the leading education company in China, which is one of the largest K-12 education markets in the world. Through this JV, we'll be able to reach out to millions of Chinese students efficiently."