KPR Mill's education initiative for women employees yields excellent results

Coimbatore-based KPR Mill Limited has been in the news for its pioneering educational initiatives as part of its CSR activities. Over 27,000 women employees working in the group have successfully completed higher education courses in the last 23 years. Going one step further, it has now successfully trained 52 candidates of which 45 students have already been placed in reputed establishments till now. A report

The educational initiatives of KPR Mill date back to 1998. “As you know, women from the villages in the vicinity of our mills form the majority of our workforce. Most of them are usually educated up to Class IX or XII. Their family circumstances are such that they are not able to continue their studies. We started to offer various types of educational programmes for them, including, degree, vocational training and nursing since 1998 onwards,” informs K P Ramasamy, Founder and Chairman, KPR Mill. An exclusive facility has been set up in the company where classes are held in the evening for various such educational programmes. A team of faculties have been exclusively appointed at the facility.

In a day and age when companies are worried about increasing attrition rates, what was the trigger for offering placement to some of their women employees? Replies Ramasamy: “Most of our employees are happily married and settled. However, in recent times, we are witnessing an unfortunate increase in divorce rates. There have been instances where some of the women have come back after divorce to seek employment again. We were pained to see their situation. We felt sad that even after doing so much for them we still could not make a difference in their lives. That was the trigger for the idea of training them and placing them in good positions in reputed companies.”