With almost all upscale greenfield schools promoted in the new millennium being co-ed, the league tables of boys (and girls) boarding have been shrinking with each passing year. This year is no different. Against the backdrop of a rising global tide of gender egalitarianism and women’s empowerment — on September 20, Parliament overwhelmingly passed the 108th Constitutional Amendment enabling reservation of 33 percent quota for women in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies — gender segregated schools are becoming old-fashioned. Even the hallowed Harrow School, UK (estb.1572), traditionally an all-boys school which has struck roots in India (Bengaluru) and admitted its first batch in August, has metamorphosed into a co-ed school in its India avatar. With almost all upscale greenfield schools promoted in the new millennium being co-ed, the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings 2023-24 league tables of the boys and girls boarding (and day schools) has been shrinking with every passing year. Coterminously co-ed schools league tables in all categories — day, boarding and international — are growing and expanding. But although in his recently published Memoirs of a Maverick, bureaucrat-turned politico Mani Shankar Aiyar, a former student of The Doon School, Dehradun (TDS), recalls requesting the board and management of the school to convert it into a co-ed institution, it’s evident that the plea has fallen on deaf ears. Because in its present avatar as a boys boarding school, TDS (estb.1935), has done very well, thank you, and has acquired an excellent reputation as the gold standard of boys boarding school education. Ever since the pioneer EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) survey was initiated in 2007, except once, TDS has topped the Boys Boarding school league table with total scores well-ahead of rivals. This year is no different. TDS has topped the EWISR 2023-24 boys boarding school league table with highest scores on seven of the 14 parameters of school education excellence including competence of teachers, co-curricular education, curriculum and pedagogy, individual attention to students, leadership, safety & hygiene, infrastructure and mental and emotional well-being services. “The success secret of TDS is that over the past eight decades, successive principals and managements of the school have focused on the vision and mission of the founders of TDS, viz, to educate and nurture future leaders invested with best Indian values and culture. I am pleased that your sample respondents have correctly awarded us the highest scores under seven of the 14 parameters of school education excellence. Of them, I am especially satisfied about the highest score under the pastoral care parameter. This is the outcome of the tutorial system adapted from the globally reputed Eton College, UK, where I served as teacher in 1991. Under this system, every TDS student is one of seven tutees who are carefully nurtured by one teacher throughout their stay here with us. This ensures that his strengths and weaknesses and mental and emotional well-being are addressed by the tutor and his peers through his years in TDS. However, I am surprised by…
