Kolkata

The carefully selected 251 sample respondents comprising preschool parents and teachers/educationists of the EW Kolkata Preschool Rankings 2013 table have engineered radical poriborton to last year’s Top 20 league table

This Year the EW League Table of Kolkata’s Top 20 preschools has experienced a major make-over. The carefully selected 251 sample respondents comprising preschool parents, teachers and educationists in the beleaguered city of joy — which is waiting for the elusive poriborton (change) promised by the Trinamool Congress which swept to power in 2011 after 34 years of Marxist rule of the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) — have engineered radical poriborton to last year’s league table.

While at the very top the previously #2 ranked Mongrace Montessori House, Short Street, has been voted Kolkata’s #1 in 2013 with last year’s #1 EuroKids, Salt Lake, pushed to #2, five pre-primaries ranked #11-20 in 2012 have been upgraded to the Top 10 table. They are: Stepping Stone, Salt Lake (from #11 in 2012 to #3 in 2013); EuroKids, Lake Town (16 to 4); Alipore Tiny Tots (19 to 6); Kangaroo Kids, Salt Lake (13 to 7); and Young Learners, Salt Lake (20 to 10). Kangaroo Kids, New Alipore has held on to its #5 position as has Bal Nilaya, Lake Gardens to #8 while The Tree House, New Alipore’s ranking has plummeted from #3 in 2012 to 9 this year.

Suman Sood, principal of Mongrace Montessori, Short Street (estb.1964), is “elated” by the preschool’s rapid ascent in the EW Kolkata Preschool Rankings. Sited in spacious 12,000 sq.ft premises, Mongrace, which barely made it into the Top 10 in 2011, zoomed to #2 in 2012 and #1 this year. Mongrace is also rated #1 on six of the 10 parameters of early childhood care and education (ECCE) including teacher competence, individual attention to students, innovative teaching, leadership, value for money and special needs education.

“The news that informed people in Kolkata have awarded Mongrace #1 rank is especially welcome and grati-fying as next year we celebrate our 50th anniversary. Therefore this is timely good news for us. Through the past half century, we have stayed true to the Montessori system of early childhood education while innovating and adapting new ECCE pedagogies. Our #1 ranking on the parameters of teacher comp-etence, innovative teaching and individual attention to students is unsurprising because most of our teachers have more than 25 years experience of Montessori pedagogies, and are encouraged to be innovative. This year Mongrace has become the only and first preschool in India to participate in the British Council’s International School Awards — a global learning exchange initiative,” says Sood, a graduate of Punjab and Calcutta univ-ersities, who took charge as principal of Mongrace Montessori in 2011. Promoted by the Suresh Amiya Memorial Trust, Mongrace has an enrollment of 350 children nurtured by 30 teachers (tuition fee: Rs.30,000 per year).

Jubilation is greater within EuroKids, Lake Town (estb. 2007), ranked #4 this year against a relatively modest #16 last year. Says Ashalata Gupta, principal of EuroKids, a franchisee preschool of the Mumbai-based EuroKids International Pvt. Ltd, which has a franchise network of  800 preschools in 311 cities and towns countrywide: “It’s a proud moment for the entire team that EuroKids, Lake Town has been ranked among the Top 5 preschools of Kolkata. Over the past year, we have made a determined effort to improve our infrastructure, quality of teachers and range of activities. I am pleased that informed parents and teachers in Kolk-ata have appreciated our initiatives and awarded us the ranking we deserve.”

Further down the Kolkata league table beyond the Top 10, there’s been a major churn with several previously low-ranked preschools moving up the table. Kidzee Tulip, Dover Lane, has inched up from #14 last year to #11 in 2013 and Little Scholars, Sarat Bose Road, from #15 in 2012 to #13 this year, while Little Millennium, Girish Park has debuted at #12. The preschools which have yielded ground in the Top 20 league table are Mongrace Mont-essori, New Town (7 to 14); Red Apple Montessori, Lenin Sarani (4 to 15); Dolna Creche, Kasba (10 to 16); Little Millennium, Salt Lake (12 to 17); Prarambh, BT Road (9 to 18); Hartley School, Sarat Bose Road (17 to 19), and BEEHIVE, Elgin Road (18 to 20).

To read Kolkata's best preschools league table visit http://www.educationworld.in/rank-preschool/kolkata/2013.html