Founded in 1984 by eminent educationist Pinky Dalal, the Mumbai-based JBCN Education Group boasts three Children’s Nook pre-primary and four top-ranked K-12 schools in the maximum city.
Offering a choice of the International Baccalaureate (Geneva), Cambridge International (UK) and CISCE curriculums, the four campuses of JBCN International School (JBCNIS) deliver internationally acclaimed pedagogies in a progressive learning environment that helps foster a love for lifelong learning.
“Learning at JBCN is an Educreative process that nurtures each child through a balanced “mind, body, and soul programme” of academic excellence, artistic exploration, sports education and social awareness,” says Pinky Dalal, founder-chairperson, JBCN Education Group.
The JBCN institutions are distinguished by their rigorous academic programme, enabling infrastructure, excellent sports and co-curricular education, highly qualified teachers, digital technologies-integrated teaching-learning and strong leadership and governance systems.
In the latest Education World India School Rankings 2021-22, the group’s JBCN International School, Borivali is ranked among Mumbai’s top 10 co-ed day schools while JBCN International School, Parel is ranked among the top 10 international day schools in the city.
“JBCN International believes in a progressive educational ecosystem and aligns its pedagogy with the global paradigm. As an institution, our focus is on the growing importance of creativity, design, logical thinking, environment preservation, and analytical applications, ensuring our students are skill-ready in a dynamic world. At JBCN, we ensure that our learners are equipped with the right tools and a strong-rooted value system, thereby helping them emerge as relevant members who can contribute to an ever-evolving society,” says Kunal Dalal, co-founder and managing director, JBCN Education Group.
A finance and information technology alum of Carnegie Mellon University, USA, Kunal Dalal acquired valuable institutional and management development experience while serving at Rabobank and Yes Bank prior to taking charge of JBCN Education Trust in 2011. Since then, Kunal has engineered the promotion of JBCN Pvt. Ltd and expansion of operations of the trust and the company.
He is also a member of The Entrepreneurs’ Organization – a global network of 11,000 entrepreneurs in 48 countries. He was recently invited to serve as an independent director on the board of Aptech Ltd.
Seamless transition to online learning during the pandemic
With the Covid-19 pandemic prompting educational institutions across the country to shut down abruptly, the JBCN schools adopted a multi-pronged approach to deliver long-term virtual learning. The four key focus areas were continued reinforcement of the JBCN vision and mission (that centres on provision of holistic education to students), developing learner independence, provision of socio-emotional learning and support despite the lack of physical interactions, and commitment to core learning outcomes.
At the outset, Virtual Learning Think Tanks were set up across all the schools, the members of which were tasked with spearheading the development of virtual learning programmes in their respective schools. They included representatives of the school’s senior management and the JBCN head office team. Focus on balancing synchronous and asynchronous teaching-learning, maintaining routines and schedules, identification of suitable virtual learning platforms and technological tools, enhancement of IT infrastructure, provision of continuous training, mentoring and support for teachers, furthering learner support through the enrichment departments, and quick upgradation of school management system to accommodate the virtual learning requirements, ensured seamless transition to online learning.
Learning apart, JBCN International Schools along with its students initiated several community outreach programmes and activities to help the individuals and families worst impacted by the pandemic. They included ‘Little minds, Big hearts’ initiative for distributing food and chocolates to the elderly and children from underprivileged communities, ‘Kits 4 Relief’ fundraising campaign to provide hygiene and home essentials kits to daily wage earners, ‘Fuel-A-Dream’ fundraising campaign for providing protective gear and PPE kits for doctors, among others.
Bridging the learning gap and ensuring socio-emotional well being post pandemic
With schools across the country reopening after the world’s longest education lockdown of 82 weeks, the JBCN schools ensured a smooth back-to-school transition by adopting the following measures:
- To bridge the learning gaps brought forth by two years of school shutdown, strengthening of foundational skills in mathematics, science and literacy was emphasised.
- A blended teaching-learning model was adopted before switching completely to in-person learning. Personal development sessions were conducted for teachers with an emphasis on blended learning models and strategies for delivering uninterrupted learning in the in-person mode.
- Social outreach and community activities were resumed in-person to ensure that students had ample opportunities to interact and socialize. To ensure socioemotional wellbeing of the students and staff, the Enrichment Team was available on campus on all school days.
- Regular communication was maintained with parents for strategies to help their children and themselves transition smoothly to in-person learning.
- Health and safety protocols were standardized and implemented meticulously by the school community to ensure a safe environment for the students and staff. Moreover, robust emergency protocols were developed and shared with all stakeholders.
“The two years of virtual learning was an unprecedented experience for all. Therefore, during the first month of transition to in-person learning, our focus was primarily on bridging the gap and revisiting the key concepts from the previous grade to ensure a smooth transition to the next grade. Going ahead, we aspire to build premium, globally aligned schools equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure. We have several students graduating from our schools every year. As an evolving educational ecosystem, the natural progression for us is to focus on courses beyond the K-12 segment, where we plan to offer learners various course options,” says Kunal Dalal.
Encomiums:
In January 2022, Vittada Badgeri of JBCN Parel, IBDP secured admission at Cambridge University, UK.
Vritee Shah of JBCN Parel, IBDP received admission offers from the University of Oxford and the Imperial College (UK) in January 2022.
Grade VI student Darsh Tanna of JBCN Parel stood second in the National Math Game-a-thon 2022 hosted by Prodigy Education.
In February 2022, Grade V student Johaan Vardhan of JBCN Parel published his second short story, ‘The Great Time Heist’ in the book, ‘The Fantasy of Life’, published by Scholastic – Writers Academy.
Grade IX student Saashvi Jogani of JBCN Parel bagged Silver in high jump and Bronze in hurdles (U-16 Girls category) at the 127th Annual Inter School MSSA Athletic Meet 2022.
IBDP students Karan Doshi, Anshuman Agarwal and Shayaan Shah were selected for the prestigious Wharton Global Youth Program 2021-22 at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Nearly 1,300 teams from 64 countries participated in the
IBDP Year I computer science students of JBCN Oshiwara participated in several coding hackathons organised by national and international schools. The team won the Stonehill Hackathon 2022 organised by Stonehill International School, Bangalore. They also bagged first place in VCIS Hackathon Championship 2022 organised by Varee Chiangmai International School, Thailand and received a cash prize of US$ 500.
Dia Bhojwani was invited to be a part of an illustrious panel of speakers by Aditya Birla Education Trust Event on ‘Inclusion of Gender and Sexual Diversity’. She was also conferred the “Claudia Ann Seaman Award for Young Writers” for her story “2 a.m. in a Bombay Bathroom.”
Ruhee Chugh has recently won a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records as an official participant for the maximum number of people solving the 3X3X3 cube in the shortest time.
Grade 9 students of JBCN Oshiwara participated in the Fryer Contest 2022 organised by the Center for Education in Mathematics & Computing, University of Waterloo (Canada). The school ranked #22 among 138 schools participating in the contest worldwide and #1 in India. Students Uttkarsh Jain and Unnati Jain ranked among the top and won a special mention from the organisers.
JBCN Borivali student Aarav Desai has excelled in his A Levels and enrolled in the prestigious Michigan State University with a total scholarship of USD 105,000. He also received an admission offer from the prestigious New York Academy of Sciences and has participated in the Harvard Project for Asian & International Relations, Harvard Youth Lead Change and MIT Solve. He has co-created a machine learning app that classifies plant diseases and completed over 50 hours of community service.
Shaurya Srivastava has enrolled into Boston University’s Bachelor of Computer Science programme. He is a TEDx speaker and co-founder of an upcoming online education platform in India called ‘Hunarho’. He has won the best delegate award at several MUN conferences and has also chaired committes.
Dhwani Boricha completed more than five internships with reputed organisations during her A levels. Besides this, she co-founded the JBCN Art Club, helped organize the student-driven event Prismera, and was at the forefront of designing the school yearbook. She is a TEDx speaker and has helped teach English to a child through the Read-A-Story foundation. She has received scholarship offers totalling more than $50,000 from universities in India and the UK and intends to pursue Liberal Arts at the prestigious Ashoka University in India.
