The seven-year reign of Campion School, Mumbai in the all-boys category has ended. This year the 11,368 sample respondents have voted St. John’s High School, Chandigarh #1 by a three points margin One of the few success stories of post-independence India is gender egalitarianism — at least within the 200 million-strong great Indian middle class. Although gender parity is not yet normative in Indian society, except perhaps in the top 5 percent of upper middle class homes, there’s rising awareness within the population of the need to provide equal pre-primary and K-12 education to girl children. Therefore, gender segregated — all-boys and all-girls – primary-secondaries are a dying species, especially single sex day schools. Consequently, the number of sufficiently well-reputed gender segregated schools (schools unknown to less than 25 sample respondents are not ranked) is diminishing with every passing year. It’s a sign of an increasingly progressive mindset that new greenfield schools of all categories tend to be co-educational institutions which promote gender egalitarianism and respect. Against this backdrop, the seven-year reign of Campion School, Mumbai (estb.1943) in the category of all-boys day schools has ended. This year, the 11,368 sample respondents comprising parents, teachers, principals and senior students of the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2020-21, have voted St. John’s High School, Chandigarh (SJHS, estb.1959) #1 by a three points margin. It’s pertinent to note that Campion’s dislodgement from its normative top of table coincides with the retirement of its long-serving (2013-19) and high-profile principal Paul Machado. Promoted in 1959 by the Congregation of Christian Brothers on a 30-acre campus in the heart of Chandigarh, SJHS is #1 this year with top scores on the parameters of faculty competence, infrastructure provision, leadership/management quality and value for money (tuition fee: Rs.3,000-4,000 per month). “We are thrilled by this good news during these sad pandemic times. For several years, our dedicated teachers have been working hard to improve under all EWISR parameters of school education excellence. As indicated by our top score under the parameter of teacher welfare and development, we value our teachers very highly. Though we have suffered loss of revenue due to the pandemic induced closure of all schools, we have continued to pay full salaries to all our teachers besides providing them continuous professional training to become familiar with new online learning technologies. Therefore, we are happy that SJHS has been awarded excellent scores under the parameters of faculty competence, co-curricular education and value for money,” says Kavita Das, an alumna of Delhi University with over 20 years of teaching experience (St. Columba’s, Delhi) who was appointed principal of St. John’s High in 2007. Currently, the school has an aggregate enrolment of 2,000 boys mentored by 100 teachers. In this year’s league table of India’s Top 5 boys day schools, Campion School at #2 is followed by The Bishop’s School, Pune which has risen high in public esteem to #3 (#6 in 2019-20). It is jointly ranked #3 with St. Mary’s School, Mazgaon, Mumbai (4) which has traded…
