Day-cum-boarding schools offer excellent student body diversity and superior infrastructure with enhanced sports and recreational facilities provided to keep boarders engaged beyond school hours. Day scholars benefit by way of a more balanced holistic education experience

Day-cum-boarding schools are rapidly mushrooming across India, becoming increasingly popular with the country’s fast multiplying post-liberalisation upper middle and elite households. By hosting a mix of local day scholars and boarders from distant cities, small towns, and even overseas, these schools offer excellent student body diversity. Compared with traditional day schools, they also tend to offer superior infrastructure, with enhanced sports and recreational facilities designed to keep boarding students engaged beyond school hours. Day scholars also benefit from these resources, resulting in a more balanced and holistic education experience.

Located mostly on greener outskirts of India’s poorly planned metropolitan areas, day-cum-boarding schools are increasingly favored by affluent families in traffic-congested cities. To avoid the stress of long daily commutes, many parents now choose to enrol their children as weekly boarders — students who live on campus during the week and return home for the weekends.

Another defining feature of these modern institutions is that they are overwhelmingly mixed gender, i.e, co-educational, which allows siblings to study together while also dispensing  early lessons in gender equality and mutual respect, especially to male students. Backed by a wave of well-educated and progressive school promoters entering the K-12 sector, the growth of day-cum-boarding schools continues to accelerate. Little wonder that their number in EWISR 2025-26 has grown to 209, a 13 percent increase over last year.

At top table, there is no change in the seating order this year. For the fourth year running, the superbly equipped Emerald Heights International School, Indore, Madhya Pradesh (EHIS, estb. 1984) is ranked India’s #1 day-cum-boarding school by a wide margin. Evidently, Madhya Pradesh (pop.89 million) routinely numbered among India’s most backward BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) states, is eager to resign its membership of this club.

EHIS is followed by the Sanskaar Valley School (estb.2006) based in Bhopal (the admin capital of Madhya Pradesh). Top table is completed by DPS, Vasant Kunj ranked #3 (#3 in 2024-25); the reclusive Pallikodam, Kottayam (Kerala) #4 (3), and Yadavindra Public School led by the formidable Major Gen. (Retd) T.P.S. Wairach promoted to top table at #5 (6) this year.

A finance and  business management alumnus of the blue-chip Stony Brook University, New York with an institutional  leadership diploma from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, over the past decade since he took charge of EHIS promoted by his parents way back in 1984, Siddharth Singh has expanded and transformed EHIS, sited on a clean-green 100 acre campus in suburban Indore, into a globally-benchmarked day-cum-boarding school that hosts children from across India and seven countries abroad.

“I am very pleased to learn that EHIS is ranked India’s #1 day-cum-boarding school with highest scores under seven of the 14 parameters of school education excellence devised by EducationWorld. I believe this is the outcome of the goal we have set of out-performing ourselves in academics and sports from year to year. Earlier this year our class XII batch of 280 students averaged 87 percent in CBSE’s school-leaving class XII exam with 108 students averaging 90 percent plus, and the topper 99.2. As a result our students are welcomed into premier universities in India and abroad, bagging scholarships valued at Rs.300 crore this year. In sports as well we have nurtured 400 SFI certified national sportspersons, three shooters in the Top 10, a snooker champion and a Davis Cup tennis player. Currently we are building India’s sole Level 2 athletics track. In EHIS we are determined to advance simultaneously under all EW parameters — teacher development, which results in teacher competence and academic reputation, sports education, infrastructure development and community service. The secret of our success is that we are continuously and consciously advancing on all fronts to develop into a school comparable with the best worldwide,” says Singh. Currently this CBSE-affiliated school has 4,200 students, including 800 boarders from seven countries.    

Beyond top table, there’s been some rearrangement of the seating order in 2025-26. The spic-n-span, Mann School, Delhi has retained its #6 rank of 2024-25 (and Delhi #1) followed by the exemplarily well-administered Central Public School, Udaipur at # 7 (#1in Rajasthan).

LKSEC, Nagaur principal R.C. Joshi: teacher welfare focus

But the churn in the 2025-26 league table has been caused by the huge promotion awarded by this year’s sample respondents to the L.K. Singhania Education Centre, Nagaur (Rajasthan) promoted from a modest #15 in 2024-25 to the Top 10 table with #7 rank.

Other day-cum-boarding schools in the Top 10 table awarded minor promotions include Shree Sarasswathi Vidya Mandir, Coimbatore (#1 in Tamil Nadu) presided by the formidable Dr. Manimekalai Mohan #8 (9); Chennai Public School, Thirumaz co-ranked #8 (9); Delhi Public School, Siliguri # 9 (10) jointly with Apeejay School, Noida which has been awarded a spectacular promotion to #9 (53). Geekay World School, Vellore and ODM Public School, Bhubaneswar jointly ranked #10 complete the 2025-26 Top 10 league table of day-cum-boarding schools.

Ramesh Chandra Joshi, an economics and education postgrad of Lucknow and Kumaon universities who began his teaching career in the Birla High School, Ranikhet (UP) prior to signing up with the superbly equipped L.K. Singhania Education Centre, Nagaur (LKSEC estb. 1987) is “very happy” that this CBSE-affiliated co-ed day-cum-boarding school spread over 200 acres, has bounced back in the public esteem as a boarding school after the numbers depletion it suffered during the Covid-19 epidemic. Currently boarders at 1,000 outnumber day scholars (800).

“I believe this is the outcome of the excellent remuneration of our teachers — which includes free-of-charge campus accommodation — and the continuous in-house and external training we provide them after induction. The other distinguishing factor of LKSEC is our strong emphasis on vocational education for all students. We have a thoroughly modern ITI (Industrial Training Institute) on our campus and we ensure that all students including girl children qualify for a technical certificate before they graduate. There is growing awareness of the excellent combination of academic and life skills education rooted in Indian values that we provide. This perhaps explains our big promotion this year,”  says Joshi.

Sunbeam Suncity Chairman Deepak Madhok: joyous learning focus

Likewise, Dr. Deepak Madhok, promoter-chairman of the new- age Sunbeam Suncity School, Varanasi which has been elevated to #13 (15) and Sunbeam School, Varuna promoted to #15 jointly with Sunbeam School, Bhagwanpur Varanasi (16), is thankful that these schools with globally benchmarked infrastructure and admin systems ranked #1 & 2 in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous (220 million) state, are “inching their way up” the EWISR national league table.

“I am especially encouraged by the high scores conferred on all three schools under the teacher welfare and development parameter. In the Sunbeam Group we accord highest importance to teacher recruitment and training. That’s because we believe well-trained and motivated teachers are necessary to enable children to excel academically and develop holistically. I’m also pleased about our good score under infrastructure. We continuously upgrade our campuses to provide children access to STEM, digital and other labs to enable them to enjoy experiential learning. The outcome is that our children learn joyously, as indicated by our good score under the parameter  of mental and emotional well-being,” says Madhok, an alumnus of Benares Hindu and Allahabad Universities and former bureaucrat who resigned from the UP civil service in 1990 to aid and enable his parents Amrit and Deesh Madhok who had promoted the first Sunbeam School, Bhagwanpur in 1972 to propagate English medium education in the world’s oldest city. Currently the Sunbeam Group comprises nine owned and 17 associate English medium schools, two women’s colleges, an autism centre and a free school offering vocational education, across Uttar Pradesh with an aggregate enrolment of 35,000 students and 2,000 teachers.

Asian School, Dehradun students: spectacular leap forward

Further down the 209-strong league table of India’s most admired day-cum-boarding schools, several institutions have been awarded big promotions. Among them: Asian School, Dehradun which has made spectacular leap forward in the public esteem into the Top 20 at #19 (36); the  Sanjay Ghodawat International School, Kolhapur #20 (24); the previously unranked Dharav High School, Jaipur #23; Ram Ratna Mandir, Thane (Maharashtra) #28 ((47) the previously unranked NPS International, Guwahati #29 and the G. D. Goenka Signature School, Gurugram #32 (74).

Readers should also bear in mind that schools modestly ranked in the national league table may well be top or high ranked in their host states and cities, a consideration of special interest to day scholars. For instance, Sanjay Ghodawat International ranked #20 nationally is the #1 day-cum-boardings school of Maharashtra (pop.128 million) and Usha Martin World School, Patna ranked India #18 is ranked #2 in Bihar (pop.130 million). Therefore readers would be well-advised to check out city league tables which provide city, state and national rankings simultaneously.