Article About Education and Healthcare by Anjali Prayag

`Education is the best investment'

Entrepreneurship in education and healthcare is a tricky business. Without compromising on quality, cost and pricing parameters have to be carefully watched. While an innovative idea gets applauded, an expensive one will be frowned upon. So how does one tread this difficult path?
"Let me tell you about our business model," says Dr Ramdas Pai, Chairman and President, Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG). At the group's medical colleges, one-third of the students are NRIs admitted only on merit. In turn, they subsidise the education of the other two-thirds who cannot afford expensive medical education, he explains.

The same principle holds good in their hospitals too, says Dr Pai. About 80 per cent of the patients in the general wards only pay about 10-15 per cent of the cost and about 10 per cent of the beds are offered free. "We believe that both in education and healthcare, nobody should be stranded or turned away because of lack of money," he says.

He narrates the story of a vegetable vendor who came to him decades ago pleading for a job for his son, who was an SSLC pass. "We could have easily given him a small-time job in one of our set-ups and be done with it. Instead, I advised the young boy to take a loan in a bank and continue his education in our college." He now lives and works in the UK.

Dr Pai firmly believes that the only thing that can change the face of this country is education. Human resource is our country's greatest asset and it's time to tap the potential of the two billion hands, he feels.

"Right now, our population is a liability, but with education and good healthcare we can turn it into an asset." He feels that there is no investment as good as education because of its yield.
MEMG's foray into the two high-pulse sectors began more than half a century ago when Dr Pai's father, Dr T M A Pai, started the Kasturba Medical College in Manipal. The first batch comprised 34 young men.

Today, students from 31 countries come to this university town in the South Kanara district of Karnataka, every year. In fact, the town is known to have more foreign nationals than any other region in the country — about 75,000 at any given point of time.

Kasturba Medical College is also the country's first self-financed college. For its first batch itself, the college was awarded recognition by the Indian Medical Council and the General Medical Council of Great Britain. After taking over the mantle of the group from his father in 1979, Dr Pai decided that MEMG's commitment to education and healthcare would move beyond South Kanara.

Institutes of learning were set up in various fields such as health sciences, technology and management. Dr Pai was responsible for establishing the first joint venture between the State Government and the private sector. The Sikkim Manipal Univeristy was set up with a medical college in Gangtok. This was just the beginning. Next came a teaching hospital and then an engineering college, with the group contributing nearly Rs 200 crore in these projects. Today, all these are part of the Sikkim Manipal University.

Dr Pai had earlier been invited by the Government of Nepal to start a medical school in Pokhara. In 1995, the Melaka Manipal Medical College was set up in Malaysia. Students of the college study in Manipal for two-and-a-half years and continue their clinical training for the same duration at the Melaka General Hospital in Malaysia.

The Manipal Academy of Higher Education was the first private university recognised by the Government of India, in 1993. Today, MEMG has two universities, 24 professional colleges, 11 hospitals (including 6 teaching hospitals) and 33,000 students from over 48 countries.

Technology and innovation have not been ignored here, he says. Through its distance education wing, designed to scale down the cost of education, the Manipal University reaches out to 39,000 students studying in 400 centres — the largest after IGNOU.

New business trends like outsourcing have to be tapped to our advantage, says Dr Pai. For instance, MEMG's healthcare BPO, employing around 1,000 people, has just been launched and business is `just picking up,' he says.

MEMG has also tied up with the National Health Service (NHS) of the UK to send its doctors and nurses abroad for short stints in the areas of ophthalmology and orthopaedics. "So far, NHS was outsourcing medical talent from Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Now Indian doctors are getting globally recognised."

Commenting on the opening up of the education sector early next year, Dr Pai says, "I don't know what will happen. Personally I feel it will be good because competition is good for any business. In fact, it is an opportunity for us to benchmark with the world's best schools." Good institutions should not worry, "but unfortunately, the Government's regulations are not very clear," he says, adding, "There are a lot of grey areas which need to be cleared."

Dr Pai was recently awarded the Ernst & Young `Entrepreneur of the Year' 2004 in the services category. The award, celebrates entrepreneurs who are building and leading successful, growing, and dynamic businesses, recognising them through regional, national, and global award programmes in more than 115 cities and 35 countries.