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International pre-school chain Safari Kid has entered India by opening up a centre in Mumbai. Founded in 2005 in Newark, California, it is one of the largest kindergarten / pre-school chains in Silicon Valley.
Aniruddh Gupta, Managing Director, Safari Kid International said that the whole idea behind getting Safari Kid to India was we because they saw a big gap in early childhood education in India. "There is really no chain of pre-school or day care centre here that can match up to international standards," he added.
There are more than 25 Safari Kid locations with more than 10,000 students across USA, Canada, Hong Kong, UAE and Malaysia among others. A further 20 centres are opening globally in 2015.
Gupta said that apart from Mumbai where they have opened a centre, they would open a centre in Pune in January and in Bengaluru in March. "Our plan is, in second half of 2017, we will open five more centres in the country, in different cities and we will expand to about 50 centres in three to five years," he added.
This chain will not be following the pure franchise model. Their target group will be the upper middle class, and Gupta reiterated that the pricing is going to be same as the other premium Indian chains in those cities.
Presently, they do not plan to enter semi-urban and rural markets and Gupta said that they will first assess the demand there. According to him, their USP is that the entire programme is customised to development need of every child. "We understand each child develops at a different pace and entire curriculum and learning is customised to the ability of each child," he explained.
