Oberoi International School Mumbai

OIS is an exclusively offshore exams-board affiliated K-12 institution routinely ranked among Mumbai’s Top 3 international schools

Curiously, although mumbai has long been acknowledged as the commercial capital of the country with a greater density of millionaires and high net worth (HNW) households per square mile than any other metro, high-end international primary-secondary schools with globally comparable infrastructure and offshore exam board affiliation are a relatively recent phenomenon in urbs prima Indis.

Mumbai’s first genuinely international primary secondary — the Dhirubhai Ambani International School  — was promoted by the country’s premier HNW family in 2003 followed by the establishment of Ecole Mondiale World School (2004) and the Oberoi International School (2008). These capital-intensive institutions are routinely ranked Mumbai’s top three international schools.

The relatively low-profile Oberoi International School (OIS), promoted by Oberoi Realty Ltd six years ago, offers its 1,301 students the curriculums of the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) in KG-class V and classes XI-XII, and of the UK-based Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) for classes VI-X. OIS is an exclusively offshore examination boards-affiliated K-12 institution, ranked #6 among international schools countrywide and #3 in Maharashtra and Mumbai in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2013.

Constructed vertiginously on a 1.13 acre separate campus set within the 80-acre Oberoi City under development in the Mumbai suburb of Goregaon, OIS offers its students 100 fully-wired classrooms with electronic smart boards, multimedia projection equipment and enviable teacher-pupil ratios of 1:8 in kindergarten, 1:6 in primary school and 1:6.5 in secondary and higher secondary classes. The school’s 1,301 students of 26 nationalities are mentored by 190 teachers, of whom 54 have foreign professional qualifications. Housed in a ten-storied building with each floor averaging 24,000 sq. ft, the academic infrastructure includes eight science laboratories, two ICT (information and communications technology) labs, and two libraries for the junior and senior schools with an aggregate 49,000 volumes, 51 journal subscriptions and 16 electronic resources.

Impressive co-curricular and extra-curricular education facilities — the hallmark of genuine international K-12 institutions — are omnipresent in OIS. The school offers students a bouquet of 51 co-curricular activities including computer animation, forensics, debates, games and app development, ballet, jewellery design, journalism, robotics, pottery, webpage design, music, theatre, and dance, for which 18 practice rooms and a 400-seat auditorium have been provided.  Students have the option of choosing three activities.

Moreover, despite constraints of outdoor playing spaces because of the poor, haphazard civic planning which typifies Mumbai (pop. 12 million), the range of sports, games and athletics facilities provided by the OIS management is impressive. Outdoor sports on terra firma include football and athletics. Other games facilities extend to glass-backed squash and basketball courts, and two swimming pools uniquely sited indoors with tennis played on synthetic courts on the terrace of the tenth floor.

“The biggest differentiator of OIS is our faculty. We follow a rigorous process in the recruitment of teachers with a selection ratio of 1:20. Recruitment is followed by intensive in-service training supplemented by weekly workshops including international workshops in which global best practices are shared, and teachers are supported in their efforts to introduce innovation in their classrooms,” says Dr. Vladimir Kuskovski, an alumnus of Minsk Linguistic University of Belarus, Manchester (UK), and St. Mary’s (USA) universities with the latter awarding him a doctorate in K-12 educational leadership. An education reform consultant to President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation, Kuskovski acquired valuable experience as head of school in the International School Hamburg (2009-2011), and headmaster of the Leysin American School, Switzerland (2002-2009), prior to his appointment as principal of OIS in 2011.

With the school’s early years and primary programmes running to full capacity and its admission waiting lists lengthening, the OIS management plans to expand capacity to 1,600 students from the start of the next academic year. “Our continuous focus on benchmarking ourselves with globally respected international schools is raising OIS in the public esteem. Word about our unrelenting pursuit of excellence is spreading across and beyond Mumbai,” says Kuskovski, adding that a branch campus is on the management’s drawing board.