The latest presentation of the Bangalore-based Indus Trust, which has promoted Top-10 rank international schools in Bangalore and Hyderabad, is IIS-Pune, off to a flying start.One of the most inspiring success stories of high-end, upscale K-12 education in post-liberalisation India is of the Bangalore-based Indus Trust, constituted in July 2003 by Silicon Valley-based entre-preneur Kumar Malavalli and Bangalore-based real estate tycoon Sushil Mantri. Since 2003 when the trusts first Indus International School (IIS), Bangalore, affiliated with the International Bacca-laureate Organisation (IBO), Geneva and the Cambridge International Examination (CIE) Board, admitted its first batch of students, two Indus International clones have sprung up in Hyderabad and Pune (estb.2008). Remarkably, under the leadership of Lt. Gen (Retd) Arjun Ray, PVSM, VSM, who was hand-picked and appointed chief executive of the Indus Trust in 2003, within less than a decade not only are three international schools under the flagship brand up and running, two of them — Bangalore and Hyderabad — are ranked among the Top 10 inter-national schools countrywide in the latest EducationWorld-C fore Indias Most Respected Schools Survey 2011. The latest presentation of the Indus Trust is IIS-Pune — a day-cum-boarding co-ed school affiliated with IBO and CIE — which admitted its first batch of 40 students in August 2008 and currently has an enrolment of 200 students from 22 countries in classes K-XI. Theres a great shortage of leaders in society. Therefore our objective is to shape evolved leaders of tomorrow by delivering balanced, holistic education to produce citizens who think globally and act locally. The motto of Indus International schools is in omnia paratus — prepared for all challenges. We offer our students K-12 education based on the core character-building values of love, empathy, discipline and respect, says Shouquot Hussain, an alumnus of St. Pauls School, Darjeeling and Gauhati University who began his teaching career with DPS, Digboi, and served with Pathways World School, Gurgaon (2003-07), before signing up with IIS-Bangalore as vice principal. In 2010, he was deputed to head IIS-Pune. According to Hussain, under IIS-Punes carefully designed curriculum, boys and girls in K-V classes are schooled in the time-tested and globally accepted primary years programme (PYP) of IBO, Geneva. Thereafter in classes VI-VIII, they are integrated into the Middle School Programme (MSP) — a liberal, holistic curriculum common to all Indus International schools — before switching to the IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) curriculum of CIE, UK in classes IX-X. Subsequently, in classes XI-XII they revert to the IB diploma programme. We believe this thoroughly international academic programme promotes independence, love of learning and a connection to the world with a sense of social respon-sibility, says Hussain. In keeping with the best traditions of the parent IIS-Bangalore, no pains have been spared to provide an ideal learning environment for IIS-Punes 200 children. Spread over 36 green acres on the periphery of the Manas Lake on Mulshi Road, the school offers a serene and scenic environment, and clean oxyg-enated air amid undulating countryside. The campus designed…
