Meet Sunny Varkey The Indian man who built World Largest Private Schools in the world.

 www.arzeeka.com , 24/09/2025, Muhammed Gambo 


This Indian boy Sunny Varkey sold fruits on the streets as a kid. Today, he built the world's largest privateschool network with over 200,000 students all over the world. Meet Sonny Varkey, the founder of GEMS Education.

Sunny Varkey

Sonny's parents were teachers who left Kerala and traveled from India to Dubai in 1959. They began by teaching children in their home and opened their own English high school in Dubai in

1968. But financial troubles forced 11-year-old Sonny to sell fruits on the streets to support his family.

He never studied past high school, but after working at Standard Chartered Bank, he started his own trading company and became part owner of the Dubai Plaza Hotel. In 1980, when authorities said the family school of 400 students needed a proper building, Sonny left his other businesses and took charge. Sonny noticed that Dubai's 1966 oil boom brought many expats,

but schools only served locals, leaving expat kids without options.

He opened schools that offered the British, American, CBSE, and IB curricula. But expansion

wasn't easy. Early ventures in Kenya and Singapore failed.

In 2000, Sonny launched Global Education Management Systems to guide his global expansion.

By 2003, he began opening GEMS schools in England. Even then, setbacks hit hard.

His Edison Schools partnership collapsed in 2008, and Everon Education went bust, dragging

him into expensive legal battles. Today, GEMS Education runs over 60 schools around the

world, teaching 200,000 students from 176 countries. And in June 2024, Azerbaijan's state oil fund backed that growth with $100 million funding.


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