At a time when school education is grappling with the growing influence of artificial intelligence, questions around employability and the pressure of competitive examinations, Macro Vision Academy in Burhanpur offers an example of how a residential K-12 institution is attempting to bring academics, competitive-exam preparation, technology and life skills under one ecosystem.
Spread across a campus of more than 50 acres, the school combines residential facilities with academic infrastructure, sports, performing arts and technology-led learning. Its Chronosphere innovation and technology hub introduces students to areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, coding and design thinking, while its Maharath life-skills curriculum seeks to extend learning beyond conventional academics.
ETEducation spoke with Anand Prakash Chouksey, Founder and Chairman of Macro Vision Academy, about the rationale behind building a residential school in a smaller city, the integration of competitive-exam preparation with school education, the role of technology in classrooms, and what Indian schools need to change as they prepare students for 2035 and beyond.
Edited excerpts:
Q. You chose Burhanpur rather than a major education hub such as Indore to build a large residential school. What convinced you that such a model could work in a smaller city?
Anand Prakash Chouksey: People used to send their children to Dehradun, Panchgani and Ooty for schooling. These places were not necessarily major cities, but they became known for their educational institutions. We felt Burhanpur could develop into a similar destination.
Our location is an advantage because it is in central India. We believed that if we provided quality education and worked sincerely for children, families would be willing to send their children here. We have seen that happen.
The important thing is not whether a school is located in a large city or a smaller town. It is whether it can provide the right environment, facilities and educational experience for students.
Q. Macro Vision Academy combines academics, residential education and competitive-exam preparation. Has the traditional school-plus-coaching model become outdated?
Anand Prakash Chouksey: One of the biggest advantages of a residential school is the time it saves for a child.
A student can wake up, reach the dining hall, attend classes and return to the hostel without spending hours travelling between school, coaching centres and home. The time saved can be invested in self-study, sports, personality development and competitive-exam preparation.
A child’s day has only 24 hours. We should organise the educational environment so that those hours are used productively without reducing the experience to academics alone.
Our objective is to bring these different elements together rather than make students manage them separately.
Q. Competitive examinations have become a major part of school education. How do you integrate preparation for examinations such as JEE and NEET without losing sight of the school curriculum?
Anand Prakash Chouksey: We believe in a blend of the NCERT curriculum and competitive-exam preparation. The preparation begins from the start of the academic year, rather than being treated as something separate that students must take up later.
We also recognise that every student has a different aptitude and level of preparedness. Some students want to pursue IITs and are prepared to work towards JEE Advanced, while others may decide that another academic pathway is more suitable for them.
We try to identify these differences and guide students accordingly. We do not believe that every child should be forced into the same preparation model.
For us, the larger objective is to make students stronger academically while helping them understand the opportunities available to them.
Q. Beyond engineering and medicine, how do you help students explore other career pathways?
Anand Prakash Chouksey: We are trying to build opportunities for students across different streams. In commerce, for instance, we support preparation for CA Foundation and IPMAT. We also work with students interested in law through CLAT preparation.
The number of seats in some of these programmes is limited, but that should not stop us from helping students prepare for them.
Our objective is to ensure that students are aware of the options available to them. When younger students see their seniors pursue different pathways and achieve results, it also motivates them.
We are now putting greater emphasis on strengthening the foundation of students in Classes IX and X. If students develop a clearer understanding of their interests and options at an earlier stage, they can make more informed decisions about their future.
Q. You have spoken about identifying a child’s aptitude rather than pushing every student towards a conventional career. How does that translate into everyday school life?
Anand Prakash Chouksey: If you take a group of 100 or 1,000 children, you will find that they are not all academically strong in the same way. Nor will they all have the same interests.
The basic responsibility of parenting and education is to discover what a child can do well. If a parent is a doctor, it does not automatically follow that the child must become a doctor too.
We try to identify whether a child has an aptitude for music, journalism, engineering or something else, and then encourage that interest.
This requires access to different activities, trainers and coaches. If a child gets the opportunity to explore different fields, it becomes easier to recognise strengths that may not be visible through examination marks alone.
That is why sports, performing arts and other activities have a place alongside academics in a school.
Q. Parents increasingly ask schools to demonstrate the return on their investment. How do you respond to questions about what a child gains after 12 years of schooling?
Anand Prakash Chouksey: I raise this question myself during parent meetings. I ask parents to consider what their child has experienced from nursery to Class XII, and what the outcome of those years should be.
Schools should be able to explain what they have done for a child, not just present marks or examination results.
A student who scores 68% may have made tremendous progress, depending on where the child started and the circumstances in which the child has studied. Another student may score 98%. Their achievements cannot always be evaluated using the same measure.
We want parents to see the development of the whole child: academic progress, discipline, confidence, hard work, independence and respect for others.
For example, when children first arrive on campus, parents often carry their bags for them. When they return after a period at school, we see many of them taking responsibility for their own belongings and not allowing their parents to carry everything.
These may appear to be small changes, but they reflect growing independence. Schools should be able to demonstrate such development alongside academic outcomes.
Q. You have invested in technology infrastructure, including Chronosphere. With AI now entering school education, how should schools decide what technology to introduce?
Anand Prakash Chouksey: Children want to learn things that they believe will be useful. This is true of adults as well. If students cannot see the relevance of what they are learning, it becomes difficult to sustain their interest.
The challenge is that parts of the school curriculum have not changed sufficiently with the times. Students are still studying subjects and content that have remained largely familiar across generations, even as the world around them has changed.
Technology gives us an opportunity to introduce students to new areas much earlier. They can begin exploring coding, robotics, AI and other emerging fields while they are still at school.
But technology should not be introduced simply because it is fashionable. It should expand what children can learn and what they can do with that learning.
We also need to give children opportunities to understand the practical world. Skills such as communication, problem-solving and working with tools are important alongside academic knowledge.
Q. There is growing anxiety about engineering graduates struggling to find jobs, even as employers say they cannot find the right talent. Is this fundamentally a skills problem?
Anand Prakash Chouksey: I believe there is a mismatch between the skills employers need and the skills some candidates bring to the table.
We have been looking for people for technology-related roles, including senior positions, and it has not always been easy to find the right candidates. A job opening can attract applications, but that does not necessarily mean the applicants have the skills required for the role.
There is also a tendency to conclude that jobs are disappearing without looking closely at the kinds of roles available and the capabilities employers are seeking.
People must keep learning and upgrading their skills. Industries change, job requirements change, and professionals need to adapt.
The same principle applies to schools. We should help children develop the ability to learn new things, communicate effectively, solve problems and recognise opportunities rather than prepare them only for a narrow set of jobs.
Q. Students are increasingly interested in careers such as content creation, music and design, which may not fit conventional expectations. How should schools respond?
Anand Prakash Chouksey: I think families are becoming more accepting of different aspirations. Earlier, a child who wanted to become a musician might have faced considerable resistance. Today, more parents are willing to support such interests. Some children want to become YouTubers, graphic designers or entrepreneurs.
We need to understand that the world of work is much wider than the conventional list of professions we grew up with.
The challenge is to help students understand these possibilities and develop the skills required to pursue them seriously. Encouragement alone is not enough. They need guidance, practice and opportunities to learn.
Schools can play an important role by allowing children to explore different interests before they have to make decisions about higher education and careers.
Q. Looking towards 2035 and beyond, what needs to change fundamentally in Indian school education, particularly for students outside the country’s major education hubs?
Anand Prakash Chouksey: Our traditional education system has placed considerable emphasis on memory. The teacher explains something, the student remembers it and then reproduces it in an examination.
But knowledge alone is not enough. Students need wisdom: the ability to understand a situation and decide what to do.
Consider an emergency such as a fire. A person may be able to search for information online, but what matters in that moment is knowing how to respond appropriately and safely.
We need to prepare children to think, apply what they have learned and respond to unfamiliar situations.
In the past, the answer was often considered the most important part of learning. Today, I believe the question is equally important. We need children who can ask good questions, challenge assumptions and think independently.
If we can create that kind of learning environment across India, including in smaller cities, our students will be much better prepared for the future.
