Education and training services firm NIIT Ltd said the company’s board has accepted recommendations by its committee to transfer the school business to its wholly owned subsidiary Hole-in-the-Wall Education Limited (HiWEL), for Rs 108.1 crore.
NIIT has four platforms—corporate, individuals, schools and skills, represented by managed training services, cloud campus, nGuru and Yuva Jyoti, respectively.
In the school learning solutions business, it provides solutions and services for technology enabled learning & teaching for schools, teachers’ training and learning for underserved children. NIIT offers NIIT nGuru solution comprising interactive classrooms, math lab and IT wizard for students and quick school as an ERP solution for school management.
Around 57 per cent of revenue comes from private schools (the figure was 47 per cent in FY13). Last year it signed up 668 schools for providing nGuru solutions with an order intake of Rs 90.9 crore. NIIT’s nGuru range of solutions is available in 19 states, touching 88 cities and over 17,000 government and private schools in the country.
In contrast, HiWEL sets up Hole-in-the-Wall Learning Stations, which is aimed at bridging the digital divide for marginalised children between 6 to 14 years of age – particularly girls and those who have dropped out or are at a high risk of dropping out of school. This unit provides solutions in the areas of elementary education, life skills and computer literacy and currently, over 500 such learning stations have been set up across Asia and Africa.
The school business currently contributes around 16 per cent of its total revenue. Corporate and individual learning segments contribute 42 per cent each while skill development is a fairly new unit.
NIIT board, which held a meeting on August 26, also accepted recommendations for amalgamation of its three wholly-owned subsidiaries—Evolv Services Limited, Scantech Evaluation Services Limited and NIIT Online Learning Limited—with the company.
The developments are as part of the company’s plans to rationalise the business structure. Its board had constituted a committee last month to examine the options of the rationalisation of the subsidiary companies’ structure.
On Thursday, shares of NIIT Ltd closed the day at Rs 49.75 a unit, down 0.10 per cent from their previous close on the BSE.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
