SIP Academy India: A boon for women and children during pandemic

Shining story of resilience in the current health crisis 

Mumbai ,9 August 2021: Women in society and especially as entrepreneurs during pandemic period have faced the challenge of balancing work and home. During the pandemic, the challenges of managing work and home has multiplied many folds due to the health scare of the pandemic coupled with the economic uncertainty that many households are facing.

SIP Academy is a child skill development company with over 950, 000 students. Started in 2003, today it is present in 22 states and 14 countries including India. The Managing Director of the company is Dinesh Victor. Dinesh Victor is an alumnus of IIT Mumbai and IIM Ahmedabad. Before the pandemic, the classes were in classrooms. Post pandemic, within a few months, the business was turned into an online model.

In Mumbai, Maharashtra SIP Academy’s SIP Abacus and Globalart programmes received very good response as children enrolled in the program in large numbers even during the pandemic times to get the benefit of developing the power of concentration, focus, visual memory, retention and recall, in addition to strong arithmetic skills and creativity and thus the overall development of confidence of a child. 

In many households the primary wage earner in most cases were the men of the house. They were faced with reduced incomes or worse still, complete loss of income from job loss. Many women had to step up to the challenge of reinventing themselves – from being a support to their husband to being an equal partner in managing the future of their families. And to top all of that the greatest challenge they faced was before March 2020 no one had ever done teaching online.

SIP Academy’s course instructors are all women – a total of over 4000 instructors across India, who teach the two courses of SIP – Abacus and Globalart. 95% of the total 850 franchisees across India are also women.

SIP Academy’s franchisee partners and the course instructors have been an integral part of the journey. The Academy’s commitment to enable them to continue their ventures with minimum disruption is indeed remarkable. The energy and enthusiasm of its partners to adapt and move forward allowed SIP Academy to achieve the transform of its business model within two months.

In the face of one of the most disruptive world incidents in our recent history, the tenacity and resilience of these women warriors is inspirational. The Academy is proud to share that the programme helped their family to survive comfortably when the pandemic impacted the incomes of the spouses. SIP Academy takes pride in being able to partner these courageous women.

How SIP Academy helped its women business partners be successful:

·         Quick business decision to pivot to online classes – thus ensuring business continuity

·         Providing technical knowledge, training and operational assistance to bring their centres online

·         Capacity building for franchisees and course instructors to manage technology, online class rooms, classroom administration

·         Enabling distribution of books, abacuses and all study material to allow classes to function without break

·         Ensuring continuity of all essential supports for business such as banking and administration

·         Hand-holding for new business development and marketing activities by enabling digital marketing support

·         Setting up a Covid emergency response team – that provided assistance with information as accurately as possible in a very dynamic situation

SIP Academy India celebrated its 18th Anniversary on 5th August 2021.  While celebrating the success of the company, Managing Director Dinesh Victor announced that to support its students who have been affected by the pandemic, SIP Academy India will offer 141 children who are current students of SIP Academy and have lost a parent during the pandemic, free course completion. While the full course duration is from 3.5 to 4 years, he announced that irrespective of which level the child is currently at, SIP Academy will waive the monthly fee for the remaining course duration.