In 2017, I traded the courtroom for the classroom. I co-founded Think Teach Academy, poured my heart and soul into building it into the institution it is today and the rest as they say is history.
Throughout the years, I have met and chatted with thousands of parents. It was always heartening to hear them acknowledge the good work we were doing at Think Teach. Most of the parents I managed to interact with commented that they resonated strongly with what Think Teach embodied and what Think Teach was trying to achieve.
Think Teach is all about Teaching Smart and empowering students to Think Smart. Our objectives are twofold. First, it is to equip students with smart studying techniques so as to change the way they learn and help them achieve exam excellence. Second, through our smart techniques, we want to impress upon students that there is always a smarter and better way of doing things. The hope is to inspire and empower them to constantly seek out more effective solutions to academic as well as life problems. This is the making of what we call thinkers of tomorrow.
Positive feedback from parents is what drives us to keep going and keep improving. Nothing would bring us greater pride and joy than to leave a lasting impact on more and more students. But therein lies the problem and the unfortunate truth.
While many want to experience the Think Teach difference not many can. This was something I came to realise a couple of years ago and it hit home hard. There was a point where I felt like a hypocrite. One the one hand, I was preaching about how I wanted to revolutionise education. I wanted to change the way every student learns. On the other hand, Think Teach was firmly fixed at a price point which was only accessible to a privileged percentage of students.
I was caught in a pickle. My mission was to provide a better version of education to every student in Singapore yet I could not lower the fees Think Teach was charging to cater to the mass market. It would not make business sense. It would also betray the brand identity of Think Teach. The only other way was to start another business venture which offers a similar value proposition as Think Teach but at a much more affordable price.
And that was how Mega Minds came to be! Mega Minds was conceptualised to fill the gap that Think Teach left behind. Mega Minds will strive to provide quality education at an extremely affordable price so that no student regardless of background is deprived or disadvantaged.
At an average fee of $125 a month, Mega Minds is affordable for virtually every household in Singapore. At that fee, Mega Minds is unabashedly the lite version of Think Teach. At Mega Minds, you still get qualified tutors that are trained by Think Teach. You still get a world class curriculum which is adapted from that of Think Teach. The only thing you would not get are the free frills. These frills are extra support worksheets, teaching videos and summary notes that Think Teach students get to enjoy on a regular basis. These frills would certainly be helpful to students in their revision and are definitely good to have but some may say not completely necessary if your child is consistent and does his or her own self-revision. Thus, we have made these extra resources entirely optional: parents do not have to but can choose to purchase them for an additional fee.
Mega Minds has been in operation for only a year and I am already so proud of the direction it is heading. Riding on the goodwill and reputation of Think Teach, Mega Minds already boasts a few hundred students from P1 to P6 doing English, Mathematics and Science. Every month we are seeing more and more students walk through our doors. We are also receiving so many heartfelt messages from parents who are grateful of what we are trying to accomplish at and with Mega Minds.
Such wonderful words give us validation of the good work we are doing. Mega Minds is more than just a learning centre that offers enrichment that is bang for your buck. Mega Minds is focussed on fulfilling a social cause – one that makes sure every child everywhere gets to be enriched by nothing short of a quality education.
My hope for Mega Minds is that it will grow to be the centre that you see in every neighbourhood. Every neighbourhood will be served by a Mega Minds centre and every child will therefore have the opportunity to experience what Mega Minds has to offer.
Specially for parents of our Mega Minds community, we would like to offer a trial lesson at $10! (usual price of $30). Each student is entitled to 1 trial lesson per subject. To redeem this offer, please send an SMS or WhatsApp message to 9431 2396 with the promo code “MMALAW”.