Gurgaon’s most admired preschools

In the second EW Gurgaon Preschool Rankings 2014, the respondents sample comprising 207 parents of pre-schoolers and 86 principals/teachers have rated and ranked the city’s Top 12 pre-primaries on ten parameters of excellence

One of the four new cities added to the EW India Preschool Rankings 2013, the steel and glass satellite city of Gurgaon (pop.1.5 million) is experiencing rapid mushrooming of early childhood care and education (ECCE) institutions. As demand from the city’s young workforce in Gurgaon — which hosts the India headquarters of several multinationals including Microsoft, Coca-Cola, IBM and GE — for professionally administered ECCE grows, a rising number of edupreneurs are stepping forward to promote high-quality preschools in this fast-track city of Delhi NCR.

In the second EW Gurgaon Preschool Rankings 2014, a respondents sample comprising 207 parents of pre-schoolers and 86 principals/teachers have rated and ranked the city’s top 12 pre-primaries on ten parameters of ECCE excellence.

They have once again voted Pallavan, Sohna Road/DLF Phase I, Gurgaon’s #1 preschool followed by The Shri Ram Early Years, Sector 48. Promoted in 2001 by Arun Kapoor, director of Delhi’s top-ranked K-12 Vasant Valley School, Pallavan has been awarded the highest score under the parameters of competence of teachers, infrastructure, leadership and provision of special needs facilities. Currently an aggregate of 220 children and 25 teachers are enrolled in Pallavan, Sohna Road/DLF Phase I which also has another branch in Delhi (Mehrauli).

“The #1 ranking for Pallavan is very satisfying as it means that we are on the right track. We are especially pleased with the joint #1 rank awarded to both Pallavan schools in Gurgaon which follow the same curriculum and pedagogy, and share teachers and resource persons. Our intensively researched curriculum which draws from the Montessori, Reggio Emilia and other ECCE philosophies, and high-quality teachers are our greatest strength. Discerning parents are aware that rather than fancy infrastructure, it’s competent teachers delivering age-appropriate curriculums which distinguish high-quality schools. It’s very encouraging that your respondents have once again voted us #1,” says Renu Kaul, an alumnus of Delhi and Toronto universities, former teacher at Delhi’s premier Vasant Valley and Springdales schools and incumbent director of Pallavan.

While there’s no change at the very top of the EW 2014 Gurgaon league table, seating arrangements at the Top 5 table have altered considerably. Pathways Early Years (PEY), Sector 49, ranked #9 in 2013, has risen sharply in public esteem to be ranked #3 this year. Established in 2012 by the Pathways Group, which has promoted three eponymous K-12 schools and three preschools in Delhi NCR, PEY has been awarded the highest score in Gurgaon for teacher welfare and development.

“Last year we were surprised by our near bottom rank given that our curriculum, infrastructure and teachers are well above average. Therefore, we’re pleased this injustice has been righted and our efforts to provide internationally benchmarked ECCE in a safe and environment friendly setting have been acknowledged. The key to our success is the great emphasis we place on in-service teacher training. Recently two of our teachers attended ECCE conferences in Hong Kong and Mumbai. Therefore our #1 rank for teacher welfare and development is well-deserved,” says Reena Singh, a science and education graduate of Rajasthan University who taught at DPS, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad and Gennext Preschool, Noida before being appointed founder principal of PEY in 2012.

Debuting impressively in Gurgaon’s Top 5 table is Amiown Preschool, Sector 27 — a unit of the Amity University-promoted chain of six Amiown preschools in Delhi NCR — which has nudged iDiscoveri Preschool, Sector 46 to #5 this year. While the Medhaam Preschool, South City-I has retained its #6 rank, BloomZ, Sector 51 (8) and Pumpkin House, Sushant Lok (9) have yielded ground. This is mainly because three previously unranked pre-primaries — Apple Blossom, Sector 45 (7), Salwan Montessori School, Sector 5 (9) and Intellitots Early Learning Centre, Sector 28 (10) — have debuted in the EW Gurgaon Preschool Rankings 2014.

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