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K M Vasudevan Pillai

K M Vasudevan Pillai (born 1946, in Kerala, India) is an Indian educationist-entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of the Mahatma Education Society, which currently manages 48 educational institutions, spread over six campuses, and serving over 35,000 students and employing 2,000 teachers and 1,500 members of non-teaching staff. Dr Pillai is also the Managing Director of Vidyadhan Educational Development Ltd, a public limited company, providing finance to educational institutions and to needy students for higher education.

Dr Pillai moved to Mumbai from Kerala in 1962, to stay with his elder brother who had migrated there three years earlier. After completing his post-graduation in English Literature, he worked for some years as a lecturer of English in Somaiya College, Mumbai. Finding the work unsatisfying, in 1970 he established the Chembur English School under the aegis of the Mahatma Education Society, which he had founded with his brother. A night junior college, the first of its kind in India, was opened in 1981, attached to the Chembur English School. Nine institutions now function out of the original Chembur campus. . Dr Pillai is also credited with having started the first unaided B.Ed. course in India.

With the Chembur campus unable to meet the growing needs of students, other campuses were set up, including in Panvel, Mumbai, and at Rasayani. The Rasayani campus emerged as a public-private partnership when Dr Pillai was invited to take over the ailing school being run by Hindustan Organic Chemicals Limited at their campus in Rasayani. Over the years this campus has grown manifold and is home to an engineering college, an architecture college and other institutions. , and is an example of a successful public-private partnership in the educational sector in India.

Dr Pillai has written a book, EduNation: Dream of an India Empowered detailing his personal experience in the educational sector, and putting forth his ideas regarding education. He argues, with ample evidence from personal experience, that our bureaucratic government system is failing to deliver adequate results. The steady withdrawal of the government from the education sector has led to a large section of young people lacking access to education. It is only when affordable education is available to all that all Indians can be truly empowered. It is only through a combination of public sector and private sector initiatives that this can be possible. . The book was released by the Hindi film actor Anupam Kher. .

Dr Pillai is also known for his innovative and pragmatic ideas and philosophies of education. His writings on educational matters appear regularly in the Indian media. Apart from pioneering the concept of public-private partnerships in education, Dr Pillai has also written persuasively about the challenges of globalisation in the field of education, which we have to "recognise, understand and avail of its opportunities."