Following elevation of three consistently top-ranked co-ed boarding schools to the Ivy League category last year, the 2026-27 table of India’s best boarding schools reflects a minor reshuffle of seating order

It’s one of the paradoxes of the dialogue-of-deaf society shaped by independent India’s Soviet-inspired Central planners that the clarion call sounded 26 years ago to “make education, aka human capital development the #1 item on the national development agenda” found resonance in Boston, USA with Abhijeet Dipke. A student of public relations who seizing upon a contemptuous reference of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court likening hapless unemployed youth to cockroaches, launched the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). Within weeks, CJP registered an online following of 22 million among Gen Z, short-changed youth born on the eve of the new millennium. Gen Z i.e, citizens born after 1996 aggregate 377 million. 

AVS principal Amit Jugran: pulled out all stops

Established political parties and India’s callous establishment are likely to face a grim comeuppance in General Election 2029 for turning a blind eye and deaf ear to your editors’ recurrent pleas to accord highest priority to public education, the sole ladder of escape for children of bottom-of-pyramid households from grinding poverty and deprivation. On the contrary, your editors’ warnings and calls for deep education reforms aroused hatred, ridicule and contempt within the establishment and educracy. But now judging by the traction and momentum being acquired by CJP, the moment of reckoning is nigh. 

This is not to state that there has been no progress in Indian education in these past eight decades since India wrested political independence from brutal, exploitative foreign rule. One of the few positive developments in public education is that despite opposition from conservative elements, the overwhelming majority of public (government) primary-secondary schools promoted countrywide whose number has grown to 1.10 million with aggregate enrolment of 140 million children, are co-ed schools.

This is a positive social development, because when boys and girl children learn together in co-ed classrooms, they develop mutual respect and learn gender equality and etiquette from early age. In particular, male children learn to respect and empathise with girls early in life. This is likely to reduce crimes against women as children grow into adulthood and increase the national FLFPR (female labour force participation rate), a metric under which India suffers in comparison with the West as also almost all Asian countries.

SSA’s Tanu Tiwari: capacity attainment priority

The virtues of co-ed education are best harvested in co-ed boarding schools where girls and boys learn together in classrooms, but also outside them on shared campuses where they learn to develop a mutually respectful modus vivendi from young age. Co-ed schools — especially institutions with advanced pastoral care programmes — teach male and female children critically important life and social skills which will enable them to cooperate in shared spaces after they graduate from school and venture into higher education institutions, and business, industry and other workplaces.   

Against this backdrop, it’s encouraging that the league table of India’s most respected co-ed boarding schools comprises more institutions than in 2025-26. However, following the creation of a new Ivy League category of boarding schools and elevation of three consistently top-ranked co-ed boarding schools to that elite category last year, the 2026-27 league table of India’s most respected boarding schools reflects a minor reshuffle of seating arrangement at top table with The Assam Valley School, Balipara retaining #1 position.

The superbly equipped Punjab Public School, Nabha is promoted to #2 from #4 in 2025-26; The Sagar School, Alwar (Rajasthan) to #3 (5) and New Era, Panchgani (Maharashtra) to #4 (5). Top table is completed by the jointly ranked Kasiga School, Dehradun #5 (2) and Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati (3).   

Hitherto, a perennial bridesmaid ranked #3 in 2021-22 and #2 in 2022-23, #3 in 2024-25 and #1 last year, the imaginatively conceived Assam Valley School, Balipara (AVS), set on a 235-acre campus within a massive tea estate in India’s premier superior teas growing region, is again India’s #1 co-ed boarding school of 2026-27.

Amit Jugran, an English literature graduate of Punjab University who began his career as manager in the blue-chip Hindustan Lever Ltd (1999-2009) before switching tracks and serving with Aditya Birla Public School, AVS and Mussoorie Public School, before being recalled as headmaster of AVS in 2022, is delighted that this new-genre superbly equipped school has retained its premier rank in 2026-27. AVS has been awarded top scores under eight of the 14 parameters of school education excellence, including teacher competence, curriculum & pedagogy, pastoral care, mental and emotional well-being services and community service.

“I am well aware that retaining top-rank in this competitive category is perhaps more difficult than attaining it. Therefore, soon after we were adjudged #1 in 2025-26, the faculty and staff at AVS have been pulling out all stops under each EW parameter of school excellence to ensure that we retain our rank this year.  In the circumstances, our top score under teacher competence is especially satisfying as it is responsible for our best scores under the other seven parameters. We have worked assiduously to attract and retain high-quality teachers from across the country, including Assam, to our logistically isolated campus. But once they sign up, we enrol them in all CISCE professional development programmes so they are fully equipped to provide best academic, co-curricular and sports education to our students. The outcome is reflected in the highest scores awarded to us under the parameters of mental and emotional health and community service — our children were very active during the recent heavy floods in Assam,” says Jugran.

 Tanu Tiwari, a medical sciences, education, English and life sciences postgrad of Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar with a Masters in zoology from Hemnandan Bahuguna University, Garhwal whose career trajectory includes teaching stints in Mussoorie International, Scindia Boys, Gwalior (2010-19) and Vidya Devi Jindal Girls (2019-24), and currently Principal of The Sagar School, Alwar, Rajasthan (SSA, estb.1999), is also very pleased with the outcome of EWISR 2026-27. Under her watch, SSA has moved steadily up the EW Co-ed Boarding Schools league table from a modest #11 in 2023-24 to #5 in 2025-26 and #3 in 2026-27, with highest score under the parameter of leadership and high scores under the parameters of co-curricular education, individual attention to students, infrastructure and value for money.

“I am very grateful to the EWISR 2026-27 sample respondents for this higher-than-expected promotion. The late legal luminary Dr. Vidya Sagar of the Delhi-based law firm Sagar & Sagar, invested heavily in providing excellent infrastructure with all facilities for co-curricular and sports education on our 160-acre campus, a two-hour drive from Delhi. But during the Covid-19 pandemic, a large number of parents withdrew their children from the school, and they never came back. Therefore, our current number of students and teachers gives us an excellent teacher-pupil ratio enabling high individualised attention. Moreover, I am not surprised by the high score awarded to SSA under co-curricular education and internationalism. We offer almost every co-curricular education option to our children including study exchange programmes with schools in France, UK, Denmark and SSA is also a member of prestigious international organisations such as Round Square, IYAC, HSC and AFS. Currently in collaboration with the top-ranked Pinegrove School, Solan and SSVM School, Coimbatore, we are working on thoroughly modernising a government school deep in Ladakh with teachers and students pitching in. With the full support of our management, I am confident of attaining full capacity very soon,” says Tiwari.   

Beyond top table, there’s been a minor change of seating order in the Top 10 league table. The superbly-equipped Sai International Residential School, Cuttack is promoted to #6 (7) and Odisha #1; Isha Home School, Coimbatore has retained its #7 rank; Sahyadri School, Pune has inched up to a joint #7 (8); Sree Vidyaniketan International, Tirupati has been awarded a big promotion to #8 (11) to enter the Top 10. Ditto Ivy International, Shimla and Abhyasa International Residential School, Toopran (Hyderabad) jointly ranked #9 from (12) and (16). The Aryan School, Dehradun awarded a big promotion from #18 in 2025-26, completes the Top 10 table. 

Vinaayaka Kaleetla, an alum of the invariably high-ranked Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet and commerce and business management graduate of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Anantapur who acquired over a decade’s market research and operations experience with IT major Tata Consultancy Services before “following his heart” and entering K-12 education, is “more than satisfied” with EWISRA 2026-27. That’s because the low-profile Abhyasa International Residential School, Toopran (AIRS) sited on a 16-acre campus on the outskirts of Hyderabad, has been promoted to the Top 10 table of India’s most admired co-ed boarding schools with high scores under the parameters of competence of teachers, academic reputation, co-curricular education, infrastructure and students’ mental and emotional wellbeing.

AIRS’ Vinaayaka Kaleetla: spiritual values priority

“The primary purpose of promoting AIRS was to teach children the best Indian spiritual and cultural values, many of which I absorbed as a student of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute, and see disappearing among India’s youth. And despite parental and other pressure, I am pleased that in AIRS this remains a top institutional priority,” says Kaleetla. “Therefore, our students are taught self-reliance through campus maintenance duties, learning of music as also documentary film production, life skills and spiritual and ethical values. The net result of this liberal, spiritually grounded education is that our children’s mental and emotional well-being quotient is high as reflected in our good score under this parameter. For young people, the coming decades are likely to prove complex and very challenging. In AIRS, our focus is on preparing them for the imminent future shock rather than excelling in exams,” adds Kaleetla.

Beyond the Top 10, further down the 64-strong league table of India’s best co-ed boarding schools, several low-profile institutions have been awarded big promotions. Among them: Birla Public School, Ajmer to #12 (25); North Point Residential, Siliguri to #13 (19); Vikash Residential School, Bhubaneswar #14 (20); Tula’s International, Dehradun #16 (30); and Sacred Heart, Siliguri #17 (26).

For reasons enumerated earlier, it is encouraging that the 2026-27 league table of co-ed boarding schools is more lengthy, while single gender boys and girls schools league tables are shrinking. This is a positive social development as explained above. It’s important to note that all the institutions included in this year’s table are carefully curated fully residential schools, which by definition are likely to be more capital-intensive than day schools.

It’s also pertinent to bear in mind that schools modestly ranked in the national tables may well be top-ranked in their host states which are more populous than most European countries. For instance, the hardy perennial Himali Boarding School, Kurseong ranked India #12 has been top-ranked in West Bengal (pop.103 million) for several years and St. Thomas Residential, Thiruvananthapuram India #29 is #1 in Kerala (36 million).

For parents anxious to provide the numerous advantages of boarding school education within state boundaries not too far from home, state rankings may be more important than national.

“It’s a matter of great pride that SVIS has been promoted to the Top 10 table of the independent, unbiased national Co-ed Boarding Schools table of EWISR 2026-27. This is the result of a combination of the Lord’s blessing and the excellent, no expense spared modern amenities that our promoter, Telugu cinema super-star Shri Mohan Babu has bestowed on our 40-acre green campus on the downslope of the famous Tirupati temple. We are also blessed that our students and teachers have seamless access to the contiguous Mohan Babu University, routinely ranked among Andhra Pradesh’s Top 3 universities. This enables our students to utilize its advanced learning facilities and discuss career options with faculty. I am especially pleased with our good scores under the parameters of infrastructure, sports education and safety and hygiene because Shri Mohan Babu and the Board of Trustees have spared no expense to equip our campus built like a green 7-star resort with all possible sports and games facilities including equestrian sports and a High Performance Sports Centre in which 100 promising young athletes and sportspersons from across the country are admitted free-of-charge every year and intensively by expert coaches for the Olympics and international sports competitions. I am also pleased that the EW sample respondents have awarded us high score under the community services parameter. Among our community outreach programmes is a Bus Stop Library and establishment of community centres in 30 villages contiguous to the school” — Vinay Maheswari, Director-Trustee, Sree Vidyaniketan International School. Tirupati (estb.1992).  Currently, this Top 10 Co-ed Boarding school has 800 students mentored by 90 teachers on its muster rolls.