With its liberal outward looking culture and capability to quickly adopt best industry and business practices, India’s commercial capital was also quick to take to professionally administered early childhood care and education India’s commercial capital and the country’s most respected epicentre of business and finance, the western seaboard city of Mumbai, aka Bombay (pop. 18 million), which prides itself on its liberal, outward looking culture and capability to quickly adopt best industry and business practices, was also quick to take to professionally administered early childhood care and education (ECCE). Pioneer proprietary preschools such as West Wind, Breach Candy (estb.1947) and Besant Montessori, Juhu (estb.1948) among others, began offering professionally managed ECCE long before the critical importance of pre-primary education had impacted the collective conscious of educators and the public. Proprietary Preschools Although a large number of new-age pre-primaries promoted by well-qualified young professionals have mushroomed in Mumbai whose population has ballooned to 18 million, it reflects well on the city’s hugely expanded middle class that it hasn’t abandoned its pioneer pre-primaries in favour of the new. Thus for the past four years, the vintage Besant Montessori, Juhu (estb. 1948) has been voted this go-getting metropolis’ #1 proprietary preschool followed by the new Alpha Kids International (estb. 2009) which has risen substantially in the esteem of Mumbai’s informed public and is ranked #2 (4) this year. “We are delighted to learn that Besant Montessori has again been adjudged Mumbai’s #1 pre-primary in the proprietary category. I would like to thank EducationWorld and your sample respondents for once again trusting our work and effort to provide high-quality age-appropriate education to our children. We attribute our success to the exemplary cooperation between our parents and teachers and appreciation and encouragement from our trustees. Besant Montessori was founded 70 years ago by educationist Tehmina Wadia. I am very pleased that we have been able to build on the strong foundation she provided this school, and have maintained the high standards of early childhood education that she set for us,” says Dolly Wadia who started as a teacher of this pioneer preschool in the 1950s and was appointed director in 1991 after the demise of Tehmina. Currently, this top-ranked pre-primary has 150 children and 15 teachers on its muster rolls. Although Besant Montessori has steadfastly retained its #1 ranking, there is a substantial reordering of seating at the Top 5 table. This year’s 704 sample respondents in Mumbai have double promoted Alpha Kids International (AKI), Andheri (W) ranked #4 last year, to #2 in 2018-19. “Being ranked among the top two preschools of Mumbai is a tremendous morale booster for our management, teachers, staff and parents. It will definitely motivate our entire team in AKI to maintain the momentum to reach great heights in Mumbai and five other cities in which we have over 20 affiliated preschools. The credit for this achievement should accrue to our management team which has stood with us for the past ten years,” says Avantika Goenka, director of AKI. Goenka…
