Tharuvai & Kumbakonam Get a Tech Boost with Zoho Schools

Zoho Schools of Learning (ZSL), the groundbreaking educational initiative by SaaS leader Zoho Corp., is extending its impact with the opening of two new campuses in Tharuvai and Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. Building on the success of its centers in Chennai and Tenkasi, ZSL continues to offer high school graduates an alternative path to careers in technology—without the need for a traditional college degree.

The life-changing influence of ZSL is best reflected in the journeys of its alumni. Take Kumaresan M, for instance—a government school graduate from a village near Tirunelveli and the son of a daily wage laborer. When higher education seemed financially out of reach, he joined ZSL in 2015. Today, he works as 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 shares.

Over the past 20 years, ZSL has become a cornerstone of Zoho’s talent pipeline. Impressively, around 10% of Zoho’s 20,000 employees—approximately 2,000 individuals—are ZSL graduates who bypassed traditional degrees in favor of the program’s hands-on, two-year curriculum.

Founded in 2005 with just six students and two teachers, ZSL was created as a practical alternative to conventional college education. The program includes one year of in-depth classroom training followed by a one-year internship at Zoho, giving students real-world experience from the outset. Operated entirely free of charge, ZSL even provides a stipend to students—eliminating financial barriers and empowering youth from underserved backgrounds to build successful careers in tech.

With the launch of its new campuses in Tharuvai and Kumbakonam, ZSL reaffirms its mission to bring opportunity and transformation to more communities across Tamil Nadu.

News by Rahul Yelligetti.