With each passing year, the EWISR league tables of gender segregated all-boys and all-girls schools are shrinking while the league tables ranking co-ed day and co-ed boarding schools are expanding, indicating that the slow march towards gender equality is accelerating

One of the major positive developments in K-12 education in post-independence India has been widespread acceptance of co-education. Whereas in the pre-independence era and even for several decades after freedom, gender segregated schools were normative, in the latter years of the 20th century and particularly since the dawn of the new millennium, the overwhelming majority of greenfield day, boarding and international schools, are co-ed. This is a socially beneficial development because when boys and girls start learning and playing together from a young age they also learn mutual self-respect and gender egalitarianism. For this socially beneficial development the Central and state governments which decreed co-education in government schools ab initio after independence, deserve a great share of the credit.

However despite co-ed schools having become normative, girl children in Indian society continue to suffer socio-economic discrimination and inequality. Therefore the fact that the co-ed day and boarding school league tables have been expanding since the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) survey was first introduced in 2007, is a good augury. With each passing year, the EWISR league tables of gender segregated all-boys and all-girls schools are shrinking while the league tables ranking co-ed day and co-ed boarding schools are expanding, indicating that the slow march towards gender equality is accelerating.

Last year following complaints of “uneven playing field” between newly promoted greenfield schools and well-established vintage/legacy boarding schools — some of them over a century old — we introduced a separate league table for vintage (over 90 years old) schools to be ranked inter se. The larger number of relatively newer schools are rated and ranked separately.

Against this introductory backdrop, in the league table of co-ed boarding (non-vintage) schools there is a major reshuffle of the top table seating order.

The low-profile, off-the-beaten-track Pinegrove School, Dharampur (Himachal Pradesh), ranked #4 in 2020-21 and #3 last year, is the country’s #1 co-ed boarding school of 2023-24, followed by the Assam Valley School, Balipara at #2 (#2 last year) jointly ranked with SelaQui International, Dehradun (4). These schools have outranked Chinmaya International, Coimbatore which was #1 last year and is ranked #3 in 2023-24. Miles Bronson, Guwahati #4 (5) co-ranked with Kasiga School, Dehradun (6) and Jain International, Bengaluru jointly ranked #5 (6) with Sahyadri School, Pune (8), complete the top table.

The Top 10 league table is completed with Punjab Public School, Nabha at #6 (9), Anubhuti School, Jalgaon (Maharashtra) #7 (5), Rajghat Besant School, Varanasi #8 (10), Isha Home School, Coimbatore #9 (9) and the New Era High, Panchgani (Maharashtra) #10 (11).

“All of us in Pinegrove are elated and thank the Almighty that we are ranked India’s #1 co-ed boarding school. It has been a long haul of 32 years during which we have worked assiduously to improve under every parameter of the annual EWISR, and finally our sustained efforts have paid off. I attribute our promotion to top spot to our focus on teacher training and development programmes with the emphasis on ensuring that our students are mentally and emotionally secure, and high quality pastoral care is provided to them. Therefore, I am very pleased that your sample respondents have awarded us highest scores on two of these three parameters. The mental and emotional well-being of our children is top priority in Pinegrove School and we have a dedicated, well-trained 15-strong team for pastoral care. I am also pleased with the top score awarded to us under the curriculum and pedagogy including hybrid readiness, parameter. All these high scores are indicators that we are progressing in the right direction,” says Capt. A.J. Singh. An alum of the National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla, Indian Military Academy, Dehradun and College of Materials Management, Jabalpur, Captain (Retd.) Singh is the promoter-principal of Pinegrove School (estb.1991), sited on two scenic campuses aggregating 50 acres in Dharampur in the Himalayan foothills.

Rashid Sharfuddin, the youthful headmaster of SelaQui International School Dehradun (estb.2000), promoted to #2 this year (#4 in 2022-23) jointly with the Assam Valley School, Balipara (2), is also chuffed that this year’s sample respondents have taken note of the “nine years of hard work” invested by him and his team to upgrade this globally benchmarked co-ed boarding school which has 360 students mentored by 45 teachers on its muster rolls.

“I am thrilled by the high scores awarded to us on the parameters of teacher competence, individual attention to students and pastoral care because these parameters are deeply inter-connected, and are the essence of boarding school education. I am also happy with the high score awarded to us under the parameter of mental and emotional well-being services, and our highest score under the value for money parameter. This is endorsement by an informed public of the excellent education we are providing at a reasonable price,” says Sharfuddin, a history and education alum of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and the University of Bath (UK) who acquired best teaching and admin experience in the top-ranked Doon School, Dehradun (2003-14) prior to his appointment as headmaster at Selaqui International.

Euphoria generated by EWISR 2023-24 and about the co-ed boarding school league table in particular, is not confined to the Himalayan foothills. It is shared in the low-profile Punjab Public School, Nabha (estb. 1961), which has 728 students and 85 teachers on its sprawling 108-acre sports facilities-intensive campus. Dr. D.C. Sharma is elated by the promotion of the school from #9 in 2022-23 to #6 this year. A polymath (M.Sc, M.Phil, in plant physiology and microbiology from Meerut University, Ph D from Devi Vishwavidyalaya University, Indore and post-doctoral alum of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore) former deputy headmaster of the top-ranked Daly College, Indore and principal of the Vidya Sagar School, Indore (2015-22), he was appointed principal of PPS, Nabha in 2022.

“It’s not well-known that PPS, Nabha was the first Sainik School established in India and that it has over 62 very distinguished alumni who have served in the highest positions of the Indian Army and the defence services. The high scores awarded to us under the parameters of teacher competence, co-curricular activities, sports and mental and emotional well-being services are confirmation that in PPS, children are provided well-balanced and joyful education.

Under the parameter of sports education we deserve a higher score because we offer facilities for all sports, equestrian included. All children are obliged to focus on one team and one individual sport,” says Sharma.

Elation is also the dominant sentiment in Cuttack, Odisha in the relatively newly-promoted state-of-the-art SAI International Residential School (SIRS) established with great effort and expense by former accountant turned edupreneur, the late Bijaya Sahoo (1963-2021) in 2018. This sentiment is especially joyous because simultaneously SAI International School, Bhubaneswar, promoted by Sahoo in 2008 has been voted the #1 co-ed day-cum-boarding school nationwide in EWISR 2023-24. At the same time SIRS, ranked India #12 in the co-ed boarding schools league table of 2022-23, has been promoted to the Top 10 table this year, and as such, is also Odisha’s #1 co-ed boarding school with high scores under the parameters of academic reputation, individual attention to students, leadership, infrastructure, safety & hygiene and pastoral care.

“We are overwhelmed to learn about our steady progress in the EWISR rankings and SIRS’ induction into India’s Top 10 co-ed boarding schools table. Our brief from Dr. Bijaya Sahoo right from the start was to ensure that SIRS became a ‘happiness school’ for our children. Therefore he spared no expense to provide a vibrant environment and best infrastructure — seven subject labs, two dozen co-curricular activities and 20 sports and games on our 60 acre campus.

I am gratified by the high scores awarded to us under the parameters of mental and emotional well-being services and pastoral care. With a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:9, we provide every student individual attention. And within this enabling environment our children excel academically with the CBSE topper in Odisha this year being a SIRS student,” says Amitabh Agnihotri, an English postgrad of Lucknow University, who began his teaching career in La Martiniere, Lucknow (1999-2011), served as the founding-principal of Sunbeam SunCity, Varanasi (2011-13) followed by a stint in the top-ranked Assam Valley School, Balipara (2014-18) prior to his appointment as founding-principal of SIRS in 2018.

Adds Dr. Silpi Sahoo, a history and women’s studies alumna of Utkal University and the Bhubaneswar-based Chairperson of the Sai Group of schools: “The entry of SIRS into the national Top 10 is the outcome of all of us carrying forward the 8×3 legacy of Dr. Bijaya Sahoo. Briefly, this pedagogy requires the school’s management to ensure that children devote eight hours every day to academic learning, eight hours to co-curricular and sports activities and get eight hours of sleep and rest in a 24-hour day. We have ensured this legacy is a watchword in SIRS. The outcome is our high scores on all parameters including academic reputation and mental and emotional well-being services,” says Dr. Silpi Sahoo.

Beyond the Top 10, several schools have risen in the esteem of the informed public. Among them: The Sagar School, Alwar (Rajasthan) from #17 in 2020-21 to #14 last year and #11 in 2023-24; Taurian World School, Ranchi to #13 (15); Riverdale International, Pune to #16 (19) and St. Michael’s Siliguri to #25 (32), thus ending the long reign of the Himali Boarding School, Kurseong #28 (25) as West Bengal’s premier co-ed boarding school. Apart from this rearrangement of rankings in the 67-strong list of India’s sufficiently well-known co-ed boarding schools, other schools have experienced minor ranking changes.

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