The national capital christened Delhi NCR by consumer goods marketers, is arguably better aware of the importance of early childhood care and education than any other city countrywide. Here are Delhi’s top preschools for the 2016. The national capital of Delhi which includes several newly risen cities spilling across state boundaries, christened Delhi NCR (national capital region) by FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) marketers, is arguably better aware of the importance and value of early childhood care and education (ECCE) than any other city countrywide. In no other metropolis is the annual scramble for application forms for admission into the city’s most well-known pre-primaries as frantic and intensive as in Delhi NCR. Every January, anxious parents brave the city’s smog-laden winter weather and queue all-night before the gates of Delhi’s most preferred pre-primaries/preschools to register their infants as applicants for admission. Although the longest queues are formed before the gates of the city’s premier composite K-12 schools because admission into their nurseries spares parents the bother of having to separately apply to primary schools after completion of pre-primary education, the pressure for admission of tiny tots into top-ranked standalone pre-primaries is only slightly less intensive. For this year’s EW-C fore perceptual survey to determine the national capital’s most admired preschools, C fore field researchers constituted a 620 carefully selected sample respondents database comprising 544 parents with children in preschools and 76 teachers and principals and requested them to rate 68 pre-primaries on ten parameters of early childhood education excellence. The parameters included competence of teachers, infrastructure, individual attention to students, quality of leadership, safety and hygiene and provision for differently-abled children, among others. The scores awarded by respondents to preschools on each parameter were totalled and proprietary and franchised pre-primaries were separately ranked inter se. OWNED/PROPRIETARY PRESCHOOLS The highlight of the 2016 Delhi preschools league table is that the seven-year reign of The Magic Years (TMY), Vasant Vihar as the city’s consistently top-ranked proprietary preschool is over. This year’s sample respondents have decisively voted Step by Step, Panchsheel (SbS, estb.1992), the national capital’s #1 proprietary pre-primary relegating TMY to the second position. Top-ranked on the parameters of competence of teachers, infrastructure, parental involvement, innovative teaching and special needs education, SbS chalked up an aggregate score of 928 (of a maximum 1,100) against TMY’s 924. Ramani Chopra, an alumna of the top-ranked Welham Girls, Dehradun and Panjab University with teaching experience in the Marshal School, Chandigarh and Vasant Valley, Delhi who was appointed principal of SbS Nursery School in 1997, is delighted with the #1 ranking awarded to this preschool. “I am very pleased SbS has been given its rightful rank after a long wait. The hard work and dedication of our teachers whose defining characteristic is that they love children, has finally impacted the Delhi public. Over the past 24 years, we have built an excellent team of teachers and this is reflected in SbS’ top ranking under the parameters of teacher competence and innovative teaching. I am also very…
