Rajendran Dandapani, Director of Technology at Zoho and President of Zoho Schools of Learning
Kumaresan M graduated from the Government Higher Secondary School in Pullukattuvalasai, a small village near Tirunelveli. As the son of a daily wage worker, he was not in a position to invest in conventional degree and hence joined Zoho’s Zoho Schools of Learning (ZSL) in 2015. Today he is a front-end developer at Zoho. “What might have been a future in local jobs transformed into a career at Zoho that has sustained me since 2016,” he says.
In the last 20 years , around 10 per cent of SaaS firm Zoho’s current workforce (2,000 people) are such high schoolers who found careers with Zoho without any degrees just by going through the 2-year programme at ZSL. ZSL, which has a Chennai and Tenkasi centre currently, is now expanding to two new locations in Tamil Nadu–Tharuvai and Kumbakonam.
ZSL started in 2005 with just six students and two teachers, as an alternative to college education. It provides a two-year training programme for high school graduates, which includes first year of classroom teaching and second year is internship at Zoho. The programme does not charge a fee but instead offers a stipend to the students.
ZSL classroom
“Right from our inception in 1996, we as a company do not believe in credentials and degrees. Real true learning is one that that sticks with you for a long time and is best learnt on the job. Tharuvai and Kumbakonam have been like feeder towns for our Chennai and Tenkasi campuses and we are now setting up new centres there,” Rajendran Dandapani, Director of Technology at Zoho and President of Zoho Schools of Learning, told businessline. Just about 1-2 per cent of ZSL graduates either choose to seek employment outside Zoho or don’t qualify for placement, he adds.
Software engineering
ZSL launched with one specialisation—School of Technology—to train for software engineering. The programme has expanded over the years to include a School of Design, School of Business, School of Graduate Studies, and School for Advanced Study. The Tharuvai campus will host the Technology and Business Schools while the Kumbakonam campus will start with Technology, with a batch of 15-20 students each.
Currently, the programme receives around 20,000 applications annually and Zoho picks candidates for a batch of around 220. This is done by way of an entrance test and also exam-less evaluation methodologies. The alumni of ZSL contribute in various roles at Zoho–from leadership positions to getting involved in deep-tech R&D projects and leading product development.
Dandapani says that ZSL’s expansion stems from the fact that the world of technology is changing much faster than we can imagine. While colleges cannot tweak curriculums at this pace, we have the flexibility to directly engage with the industry [Zoho] and only teach relevant skills, he adds.
Published on April 22, 2025
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