Liftetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2022-23: Kiran Patel

A commerce graduate of M.S. University, Baroda (Vadodara) with an MBA awarded by the blue-chip University of California at Berkeley (USA), Kiran Patel is joint managing director of the Mumbai-based American Spring & Pressing Works Pvt. Ltd (Aspee, estb.1946). The closely held Aspee is one of India’s top agri-business companies engaged in manufacturing pesticides, spraying equipment, and soil nutrients. Currently, Aspee has a headcount of 350 employees and four offices countrywide. A staunch believer in the rural and village-led national development model, Kiran Patel has also played a major role in the promotion of six colleges and five primary-secondary schools in Maharashtra and Gujarat, which have an aggregate 13,025 students and 557 faculty on their muster rolls. Born in Gujarat, the son of a school teacher, Patel’s love of reading prompted him to establish a circulating library at age 17, when he was a schoolboy. The library which had a successful run as a business enterprise, was donated to the M.D. Shah SNDT College, Malad, Mumbai in 1971. “In our family, we were inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s advice that national development is dependent upon rural self-sufficiency and prosperity. Therefore, we ventured into the agri-business industry and promoted American Spring and Pressing Works on the eve of independence. Later to aid and enable India’s farmers to adopt modern farming practices and improve productivity, we ventured into rural education,” recalls Patel. The Aspee Group’s first venture into education was the Aspee College of Home Science & Nutrition (estb.1981), Dantiwada (Gujarat). Seven years later, Patel spearheaded promotion of the group’s show-piece Aspee College of Hor­ticulture & Forestry (estb.1988) on a 1,600-acre campus in Navsari (Gujarat) promoted in partnership with the state government-run Navsari University. Subsequently, the Aspee Group established the Aspee Agribusiness Manage­ment Institute, Navsari (2007), the Aspee Shakilam Bio­technology Institute, Surat (2012), and the Aspee College of Agriculture, Porbandar (2020) in partnership with the Navsari and Junagadh agricultural universities. Under the partnership agreements, Patel serves on the Academic Council of the two universities while the universities man­age and administer affiliated colleges. Currently, the total number of students in the six Aspee Group of higher educa­tion institutions number 7,913 mentored by 289 faculty. Simultaneously to ensure that rural children receive good foundational education, under the aegis of family reg­istered charitable and education trusts, the Aspee Group promoted several Gujarati, Marathi and English-medium schools with sharp focus on educating and enabling girl children. Among them; Padmashree Anna Saheb Jhadav Kanya Vidhyalaya, Uchat, Maharashtra (estb.1971); Aspee Kanya Vidhyalaya, Bilimora, Gujarat (1979); Aspee Vid­hyalaya, Marathi Medium School (1982), Aspee Children’s Academy (2015) — both at Uchat — and Aspee Nutan Eng­lish Academy, Mumbai (2011), its first English-medium K-12 school affiliated with the Delhi-based CISCE exami­nation board. Currently, the six Aspee Group of schools have 5,112 children and 268 teachers on their muster rolls. In acknowledgment of his extraordinary contribution to­wards developing school and higher education, the Editors and Board of Directors of EducationWorld are pleased to confer the EW Lifetime Achievement in Education Leader­ship Award 2022-23…