SAI International School: In Pursuit of Academic Happiness

Abstract

The case talks about how SAI International School, a day-cum-residential co-educational school that was founded in the year 2008 in Bhubaneswar (India), sculpted itself on the edifice of learner well-being and happiness. Built on the mantra of “putting a radiant smile” on its students’ faces, this CBSE-affiliated school charted a little over a decade-long journey by making parents and teachers the two key pivots in its pursuit of happiness in education. Dr Bijaya Kumar Sahoo, the Founder and Chairman of SAI International School, believed in a system of value-based ROI of education where the intrinsic values of life were intertwined with the cognitive. Dr Sahoo was seen to be quite ahead of his time, encasing many different elements of his notion of holistic, emotion-based learning in a 360-degree report card nearly a decade before the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) put that into action. SAI International School took the process-driven route to design the institution, clearly defining roles and hierarchies, processes, documentation and structures. The school reimagined education by recognizing that real learning happened at the intersection of the mind, body and soul, opening up vistas for creating true “leaders of tomorrow.” Then, with the pandemic disrupting the entire education landscape in 2020, SAI International School garnered all technology resources and innovations at its disposal to keep its students even more connected with teachers and the Founder by moving all academic and non-academic pursuits online. For the school that had aspired to be an “institution with a difference,” the question 13 years since inception was: Was this the time to expand? If so, would a horizontal expansion work better or a vertical one?