Behind The Brand: How St Mary's Father-Son duo built an educational empire from scratch

Hyderabad: Giving up on a source of steady income to venture into an unexplored field and starting from scratch is never easy.

But around four decades ago, in the early 1980s, when B Arogya Reddy, a lecturer in a government college, hailing from an agrarian family, decided to quit his job to open the college of his dreams, his wife Y Mary Reddy supported his decision and stood by him.

Cut to 2023----the educational institution boasts a number of prestigious schools, intermediate colleges and a degree college in Hyderabad, which produced notable alumni in the fields of sports, performing arts, politics and so on. This includes tennis player Sania Mirza, cricketer VVS Lakshman, actors Ram Charan Tej, Naga Chaitanya, Rana Daggubati and the list goes on.

The credit goes to Arogya Reddy and his family.

Passionate about academics and spreading knowledge, Arogya Reddy was instrumental in setting up St Mary’s Educational Society (SMES). This society currently has Sancta Maria school, under the internationally-recognised board IGCSE (established in 2010), a branch of the school at Faridabad, Delhi-NCR (2021), a couple of intermediate colleges such as St. Mary’s Junior College at Basheerbagh (1982) and Jubilee Hills (2018) and St Mary’s Degree College (2002) at Yousufguda. Hundreds pass out from these institutes annually.

What makes these schools and higher education institutes stand out is that all of these were set up by a family of educationists and teachers, who don’t belong to influential political families or families of industrialists.

In an interview with NewsMeter, president and chairman of SMES, B Arogya Reddy and his son B Mahender Reddy, CEO of SMES, shared about their journey so far, challenges faced, future plans and changes in the education system and student psyche down the decades.

Beginning of brand building

Speaking about how the concept materialised, Arogya Reddy, a post-graduate in English from OU, said, “I loved teaching and was teaching the subject at a government junior college in Sadashivpet. But I was dissatisfied with the way it was functioning and the courses taught. I decided to start my own junior college and in 1981 and SMES came into being. A junior college followed it in 1982. My wife Mary supported me in all my endeavours. She too was a teacher and currently the secretary of SMES.”

“My son Mahender Reddy is a mechanical engineer and has done MBA from the UK. But he decided to come back and help me in running the educational institutes. In fact, he has helped us expand the society and has taken the initiative to open more schools and colleges,” added Arogya Reddy.

Roadblocks

But the journey was not without roadblocks. “Those days, we used to face delays whenever we sought permission from the government for various projects. Apart from the routine delays, there were also land issues. Many times, the lands we acquired had legal issues and we would get entangled in those, causing further delay or forcing us to shift to a new place,” said Mahender Reddy.

“Back in the day, we also faced political pressure during admission procedures. Even when we reached full capacity during admission to our junior colleges, which was based on merit and marks of board exams, we were pressured to induct more students. However, this pressure has now come down due to more colleges or options for admission, vigilant social media and active media involvement. With determination and perseverance, we could overcome all challenges,” said Arogya Reddy.

Changes in student-parent psyche

The father and son spoke about the changes perceived among students, parents and the education system as a whole in the last four decades. “Earlier, students were more reluctant to go to school and were extremely scared of teachers and principals. But nowadays, students display a more friendly approach towards teachers.

Moreover, punishing students, whether verbal or corporal, is non-existent in schools. Learning is more knowledge-based, practical application-based rather than memorising and writing. Parents are also gradually changing their mindset from focusing only on medicine and engineering as career options for their children and are being more receptive to new subjects and exploring opportunities in fields other than medical and engineering,” stated Mahender Reddy.

‘Online teaching can’t substitute classroom coaching’

“The digital era has also revolutionised the way school projects and homework is done. Also, the Covid-induced lockdown and digital teaching changed the way students were taught. But it is clear that there is no substitute for classroom teaching. Online or virtual teaching can supplement but cannot replace the human touch or human element of classrooms where students and teachers interact in reality,” said Mahender Reddy.

Need for modernisation

“However, we need to do a lot in the field of higher education, including tying up with prestigious foreign educational institutes. A couple of decades ago, the trend had been to go abroad for higher education and research after completing graduation from India. But nowadays, we see students going abroad just for a Bachelor’s degree. We need to keep up with the modern times and be more flexible rather than being too traditional in outlook, where education is concerned,” he added.

The way ahead

“Eventually, we want to set up a private university. The government has started giving permission to private universities. Since we have got 35 acres of land, we will set up a CBSE residential school in Kurnool. By August 2024, we have two more institutes that are going to come up. A sport and academic institute Schola Maria on 50-acre land beyond Shankarpally, for around 1,000 students and another residential school on 15-acre land at Aerocity.

The school at Aerocity would house 2,500 students, which is much more than the 1,600 students studying at Sancta Maria in Serilingampally. The sports school will provide professional coaching in six types of games including football, cricket, tennis, badminton, basketball and swimming,” informed Mahender Reddy and added that they are also exploring opportunities to come up in other metropolitan cities.