War between corporate educational giants out in the open

Managements of Narayana and Sri Chaitanya accuse each other of ‘poaching’

The simmering war between the two major corporate educational institutions in Andhra Pradesh — Narayana and Sri Chaitanya, is out in the open.

Representatives of both the sides have been accusing each other of ‘poaching’ their students and have said they would end their collaboration by the end of this academic year.

Separate press conferences organised by representatives of both the groups charging each other with resorting to ‘deceitful’ means to ‘take away’ their students blew the lid off the ongoing tussle.

Trouble started when the Nellore police registered a case against two senior staff (a dean and a teacher) of Sri Chaitanya institute filed by the Narayana institute on the charge that the former had ‘fraudulently’ taken away three of their ‘top performers’ undergoing a coaching in RMO (Regional Mathematical Olympiad).

Enraged by this, B. Sushma, Academic Director, Sri Chaitanya Junior Colleges, called for a media conference to announce that “we have had enough of this harassment and we want to put an end to it.”

She accused State Minister P. Narayana, who is the promoter of the Narayana Educational Institutions, of misusing his post to malign the image of Sri Chaitanya Institutions which were ‘far superior and ahead of Narayana centres”.

She said the three boys in question—Fazal, Sivakiran and Teja, were brought to the Madapur branch of her institution by their parents and admitted there. “But Narayana institute in Nellore has filed a false case with a charge that one of the boys Fazal, has been kidnapped by my staff,” she said, alleging that the boy’s parents were brought under pressure to file a police complaint.

Ms. Sushma said despite a tie-up, they had been facing problems from the other side for last few years. She said Sri Chaitanya had generated employment opportunities for 72,000 people and it had been working with a great deal of integrity and commitment. “Many students of Chaitanya colleges have crossed over to Narayana in last two months but we did not file any case against any of them,” she said. She alleged that the Narayana institutions management had resorted to unfair means to poach students from private coaching centres like Viswa Bharati, Ratnam and KKR and yet Chaitanya students had always been ahead of all others.

In a separate press meet, Narayana Educational Institutions General Manager Vijayabhaskar Reddy, launched a scathing attack on Chaitanya management accusing it of ‘deceiving’ the parents. He said the very purpose of their collaborative ‘ChaiNa’ project was to curb such ‘unhealthy’ practices.