In 2013 Kangaroo Kids, Bandra lost its #1 ranking to Podar Jumbo Kids Plus, Santacruz (W) but this year KKB has once again been voted Mumbai’s premier preschool with high scores under several parameters
In india’s commercial capital where time is money, and double income families are the rule rather than exception, professionally administered early childhood care and education (ECCE) is arguably more valued than in any other habitat countrywide. This perhaps explains why preschool educators in Mumbai spare little pain or effort to provide the best global practices in ECCE, and compete fiercely for reputation and recognition. The metro’s competitive culture is perhaps why there’s a shake-up in the 2014 EW league tables rating and ranking Mumbai’s most well-reputed pre-primaries.
Kangaroo Kids, Bandra (KKB), promoted by Africa-born and UK and Australia educated Lina Ashar in 1993, was perhaps the first of the new genre globally benchmarked preschools to impact the importance of professionally administered contemporary pre-primary education, upon post-liberalisation India’s newly emergent middle class. Therefore after the annual EW India Preschool Rankings were presented to the public for the first time in 2010, KKB was ranked #1 for three years in succession.
But the very success of KKB prompted the promotion of a spate of globally benchmarked pre-primaries in this progressive, entrepreneurial city. And so unsurprisingly last year, KKB lost its #1 ranking to Podar Jumbo Kids Plus (PJK), Santacruz (W) the flagship preschool of the nationwide 167-strong PJK network of preschools. But this year, KKB has once again been voted Mumbai’s premier preschool with high scores under the parameters of teacher competence, teacher welfare and development, individual attention to students, leadership and provision for special needs children. 
“I’m very pleased to learn that KKB has been re-voted Mumbai’s #1 preschool in the latest EW India Preschool Rankings. After being ranked #1 for three years in succession from 2010, a certain degree of complacency had set in. Therefore after we lost our premier rank last year, we did a lot of introspection together with our parents and conducted several audits of our teaching staff and their training and development programmes, which were tightened up. Evidently, word about our efforts has spread, prompting the informed respondents of your survey to vote us #1 again,” says Lina Ashar, the promoter-CEO of Kangaroo Kids Education Ltd, the holding company of the Kangaroo Kids and Billabong High chain of over 100 owned and franchised pre-primary and high schools across India and in the Maldives, Qatar, Dubai and Sri Lanka, with an aggregate enrolment of 25,000 children.
According to Ashar, its “just and proper” that KKB, which pioneered the application of new discoveries in neurosciences to ECCE to develop age-appropriate curriculums for infants, should be ranked #1. “We have integrated our self-developed ECCE curriculums with our Habits of Success programme which teaches children to persevere, be confident and enjoy accomplishment from early age. The objective is to enable children to enjoy the process of learning and become engaged and addicted to it from preschool to high school education, into which we have diversified under public pressure,” says Ashar.
The seating arrangements at the Top 5 table dominated by KKB and PJK, Santacruz have had to be rather drastically rearranged to accommodate the Besant Montessori School (BMS), Juhu ranked #12 in 2013 which has risen dramatically in the public esteem to be ranked #3 this year. Leapbridge International, Sion and Alpha Kids, Andheri (W) complete the Top 5 table.
The composition of the Mumbai Top 5 at the expense of the vintage Casa Bambino, Bhulabhai Desai Road, confirms the sociological shift of the centre of gravity of India’s commercial capital from south Mumbai to its western suburbs, a phenomenon which has been attracting considerable comment in recent years. Further proof of the declining influence of the hitherto academically dominant south Mumbai is provided by the rank awarded to Headstart, Prarthana Samaj which was ranked #2 in 2011 but reduced to #19 this year.
“I’m very pleased that Besant Montessori has at last been given the recognition and appreciation it deserves. This pre-primary established by one of Mumbai’s most revered educationists, the late Tehmina Wadia who was trained by Maria Montessori herself, has been providing high-quality child-centric pre-primary and primary education to children for over 60 years. During this period, we have developed excellent continuous teacher training systems and transformed our campus into a clean, green haven with wide open spaces for children to play and learn peacefully at their own pace. We give our teachers wide autonomy to
innovate and experiment with modern pedagogies. I am particularly satisfied with the high scores your informed respondents have awarded BMS under the parameters of parental involvement and safety and hygiene, because these are important issues for us,” says Kavita Rode, a commerce and education graduate of Nagpur and Mumbai universities who signed up with BMS (estb. 1948) in 1995 as principal, and has played a major role in modernising the infrastructure and operations of this vintage ECCE centre and primary school (up to class V) which has an aggregate enrolment of 300 children.
On the other hand although Alpha Kids (formerly Camlin Alpha Kids), Andheri (W) has also improved its ranking from #7 in 2013 to the Top 5 table this year, Mansi Dalal, the highly qualified (BA, Bombay University, MBA, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai and M.Ed, New Zealand Tertiary College) vice president of the Alpha Kids preschools network, is not entirely satisfied. “Given the quality of our highly trained teachers, excellent, well-ventilated infrastructure and the prime importance we accord to children’s safety and hygiene and parental involvement, Alpha Kids deserves to be ranked among the Top 3 preschools in Mumbai. We also deserve a higher rating on the parameter of provision for special needs children,” says Dalal. Alpha Kids, Andheri which runs two additional ECCE centres in suburban Mumbai (Malad and Juhu) with an aggregate enrolment of 316 infants, is indeed ranked above its overall rank on the parameters of teacher competence, infrastructure, and innovative teaching.
To read Mumbai's best preschools league table visit: