Affiliated with offshore school-leaving examination boards, international residential schools are the country’s most prestigious (and expensive) primary-secondaries sprawled across expansive campuses in scenic hill stations. Here are India’s best international residential schools 2020-21. Ranked separately in an exclusive category since 2013, international residential schools are the country’s most prestigious (and expensive) primary-secondaries. Sprawled across expansive campuses — usually in scenic hill stations — these elite residential schools affiliated with offshore school-leaving examination boards such as Cambridge International (UK), International Baccalaureate (Geneva/The Hague) and College Board (USA), offer globally comparable holistic education, and advanced pastoral care and counseling services. Right from the start, this category has been dominated by the country’s two vintage schools affiliated with IB (Geneva) — Woodstock School, Mussoorie (estb.1852) and Kodaikanal International School (KIS, estb.1901) — promoted by American education missionaries. For two consecutive years in 2013 and 2014, KIS was voted the #1 international residential school, and Woodstock was top ranked in 2015 and 2016. The hegemony of these two institutions was broken in 2016 by the home-grown, superbly equipped Good Shepherd International School, Ooty (estb.1977), which dominates the ancient hill station of Ootacamund (aka Ooty) down south in Tamil Nadu, which was jointly ranked #1 with Woodstock. In the past four years however, Woodstock has regained its #1 ranking in the international residential schools league table. This year, the 11,368 sample respondents polled by the Delhi-based market research company C fore have once again voted the 168-year-old Woodstock #1 in this category and top-ranked it on ten of the 12 parameters of education excellence including teacher competence, academic reputation, curriculum and pedagogy (including digital readiness) and internationalism. Sited high on a 250-acre sylvan campus in the Himalayan foothills, Woodstock offers its 450 students the early, middle years and diploma programmes of the International Baccalaureate, Geneva. “We are delighted to have retained our #1 international residential school ranking of 2019-20 in this year of huge teaching-learning challenges posed by the global Covid-19 pandemic. Though I am gratified with our high scores on all the survey parameters, the one which resonates the most is our highest score for internationalism. I am especially pleased that Woodstock is ranked #1 on this parameter across all categories of international schools because we are truly international with a student body cutting across cultures, convictions and religious faiths. Students learn from each other and their teachers in a way that brings out the best in humanity. I’m proud that students who graduate from Woodstock invariably become true global citizens, with a worldview which transcends borders, and an inherent desire to serve the whole of humanity,” says Dr. Craig Cook, principal of Woodstock, Mussoorie. An intercultural studies and theology alumnus of Biola University, California and Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines, which awarded him a Ph D in sociology, Cook brought over 30 years of teaching and admin experience in schools and community development projects in the US, Philippines and Indonesia, when he was appointed principal of this top-ranked school in 2019. Ranked runner-up…
