While the subject of early childhood care and education (ECCE) was unfamiliar within the rest of the country, pre-primary schools such as West Wind, Breach Candy (estb.1947) and Besant Montessori (1948) had already started providing professionally administered ECCE to infants in the 2-5 age group. Here are Mumbai’s best preschools 2019-20. Until the mid 19th century the western seaboard city of Bombay — now known as Mumbai — played second fiddle to Calcutta (now Kolkata) which was India’s commercial capital under the East India Company, the world’s first and arguably largest and most powerful multinational. But after India under the brilliant leadership of Mahatma Gandhi wrested freedom from foreign rule, and especially after the state of West Bengal (pop. 91 million), which has Kolkata as its admin capital, elected the CPM (Communist Party of India)-led Left Front government that uninterruptedly misruled it for 34 years (1977-2011), Mumbai has emerged as the country’s undisputed commercial capital and business and finance hub. Moreover, as a port city, it had historically been open to Western influences and best practices in business, finance, and education. Therefore while the subject of early childhood care and education (ECCE) was unfamiliar within the rest of the country, pre-primaries such as West Wind, Breach Candy (estb.1947) and Besant Montessori (1948) had already started providing professionally administered ECCE to infants in the 2-5 age group. Since then the number of pre-primaries or preschools has multiplied manifold and they have mushroomed in all localities and street corners. However, only 58 of them are sufficiently well-reputed to be included in the 2019-20 EW league table of Mumbai’s best proprietary pre-primaries. Under the ranking methodology of the Delhi-based market research and opinion polls company Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore, estb. 2000) which interviewed 700 sample respondents (parents with children in preschool, principals and teachers), low-profile preschool evaluated by less than 30 respondents are eliminated from the rankings exercise. Therefore, the 2019-20 league table has rated and ranked 58 of Mumbai’s sufficiently well-known preschools in proprietary and 15 in the franchised categories. Moreover based on public feedback and demand, we have rated and ranked proprietary and franchised preschools in neighbouring Thane separately this year (see p.62). PROPRIETARY PRESCHOOLS For the past five years, the league table of Mumbai’s most admired proprietary preschools has been dominated by the vintage Besant Montessori, Juhu, (BMJ, estb.1948) and this year’s sample respondents have reaffirmed their faith in this pre-primary whose management has moved with the times and introduced contemporary best practices into this 71-year-old preschool’s operations. This year, BMJ has been awarded highest score on six of the ten EW parameters of ECCE excellence, including teacher competence, teacher welfare and development, individual attention to pupils, and innovative teaching. “Although we are simultaneously humbled and delighted to be ranked Mumbai’s #1 pre-primary for the fifth year in succession, we accept this honour with a heavy heart. Our director Mme. Dolly Wadia who had joined this preschool in the 1950s and had succeeded our founder Tehmina…
