While the 24-strong EW league table of Chennai’s proprietary pre-primaries has experienced considerable churn, the 14-strong franchised preschools table has witnessed few changes from last year. Here are Chennai’s most preferred preschools: Despite the destructive and unwarranted interference of Tamil Nadu’s film star politicians with the state’s once nationally admired education system which is now a shadow of what it was, private schools in this southern state (pop.78 million) have managed to keep their heads above water. Currently, the state hosts the country’s top two fully residential international schools (according to the EW India School Rankings 2016), a Top 5 co-ed boarding school (Lawrence, Lovedale) and a dozen highly-reputed day schools. Arguably, the top-ranked pre-primaries of Chennai — the state’s administrative capital — are even better because privately-provided early childhood care and education (ECCE) has substantially been spared the inexpert attention of the state’s education ministry bureaucrats. Owned/proprietary The EW league table of Chennai’s proprietary schools has experienced a churn with the Seed School, Adyar (SSA) promoted in 2004 by the highly qualified Jaya Sastri, an ECCE alumna of the Trenton College, New Jersey (USA) who acquired valuable teaching experience in Headstart, USA, before promoting this preschool 12 years ago, rising steeply in the esteem of the city’s informed public to be catapulted from #8 in 2015 to #1 this year. Top-ranked on the parameters of teacher welfare and development, individual attention to pupils, innovative teaching and safety and hygiene, SSA has topped the league table of the city’s most well-reputed pre-primaries. Vruksha Montessori, Alwarpet ranked #3 in 2015 and Indus Early Learning Centre, Besant Avenue (#1) are ranked second and third this year. “I’m thrilled that your sample respondents have ranked Seed, Adyar #1 this year. It’s overdue appreciation of our practice of carefully conceptualised early childhood education focused on putting smiles on the faces of children. Moreover, it’s wonderful that your informed respondents have ranked Seed #1 on four of the ten parameters of preschool education. But I’m particularly pleased about our #1 ranking on safety and hygiene which is our very first priority. Nevertheless, we also pride ourselves on individual attention to pupils, small class size, innovative curriculum and customised, child-centric lesson plans,” says Sastri. Currently SSA has 75 children mentored by six teachers on its muster rolls (tuition fees: Rs.30,000 per annum). Smita Vishweshwar, promoter-principal of Sprouts Montessori, Mylapore, which has made a spectacular leap forward from #13 last year to #4 in 2016, is equally excited by the substantially higher rank awarded to this 13-year-old school which has an enrolment of 198 children (aged 1.5-10 years) mentored by 28 teachers. “I believe that the dedicated effort made by our teachers to fully understand and implement the early childhood education philosophy of Dr. Maria Montessori and the excellent support we have received form our parents community, is increasingly being appreciated in Chennai. These are the prime factors behind our improved ranking this year,” says Vishweswar, a humanities alumna of Calcutta University who completed her Montessori training…
