A hub of the IT and automobiles manufacturing industries, this steel-n-glass satellite city of Delhi has experienced a rapid mushrooming of early childhood care and education centres demanded by its young workforce
Toxic air pollution levels and a typical jugaad-style pell-mell growth with commensurately climbing crime graphs haven’t prevented the rapid growth of Gurgaon (pop.900,000), a brand new city which has sprung up on the periphery of Delhi and is a constituent habitation of Delhi NCR (national capital region) for business and commercial purposes although legally it falls within the administrative jurisdiction of the Haryana state government. A fast growing hub of the IT and manufacturing industries, this steel and glass satellite city hosts the offices of IT heavyweights such as IBM, Accenture and Siemens apart from the manufacturing facilities of Suzuki Maruti, the country’s #1 automobiles manufacturing company.
Moreover, Gurgaon — within 90 minutes of driving distance from Delhi — has also emerged as a new education hub with several globally benchmarked schools (GD Goenka, Heritage, Shiv Nadar) and universities (Ashoka, O.P. Jindal) having established sprawling campuses to educate children of the city’s large and expanding pool of professionals employed in the IT/ICT, automobiles and BPO among other industries. Inevitably, this satellite city has also experienced a rapid mushrooming of early childhood care and education (ECCE) centres demanded by its young workforce.
This year’s league table rating and ranking Gurgaon’s most reputed preschools is encouraging in that the number of sufficiently well-known ranked preschools has risen from 15 in 2015 to 26 in 2017. C fore field researchers interviewed 575 parents and 59 preschool principals/teachers of this buzzing city to rank 26 pre-primaries inter se in two categories — owned/proprietary and franchised.
OWNED/PROPRIETARY PRESCHOOLS
Over the past six years, Pallavan, Sohna Road (estb.2001), promoted by Arun Kapur, felicitated by EducationWorld at the EW India School Rankings 2017-18 awards earlier this year for extraordinary contribution to Indian education and director of Delhi’s top-ranked Vasant Valley School, has firmly established itself as the millennium city’s most admired pre-primary. It has once again been voted the city’s #1 proprietary pre-primary followed by Amiown, Sector 27 — a preschool chain promoted by the Amity University group — ranked #1 in 2016 but obliged to share #2 rank, with iDiscoveri Preschool, Sector 46 in 2017-18. Voted #3 for the second 
consecutive year The Shri Ram Early Years, Sohna Road (TSEY) is followed by Pathways Early Years, Sector 49, ranked #4 (3 in 2016) this year and tied with Medhaam Preschool, South City 1 and Amiown, Sohna Road at #5.
Renu Kaul, director of Pallavan, Sohna Road/DLF Phase I, expresses great satisfaction and gratitude that Pallavan is top ranked yet again. “We are honoured by the recognition for the sixth year in a row. I believe this ranking is a reflection of a contented community of children and parents served by happy and committed teachers. Our top rating on eight of your ten parameters of ECCE excellence is an endorsement of Pallavan’s enabling environment and specially designed activities-based learning programmes. To my mind, the most important parameters of preschool excellence are teacher competence, individual attention to children, parental involvement and safety and hygiene. We are deeply satisfied that Pallavan is top-rated under these parameters,” says Kaul, an alumna of Delhi and Toronto universities with 30 years teaching experience acquired in Vasant Valley and Springdales schools among other educational institutions prior to being appointed director of Pallavan in 2000.
Shalini Gauba, principal and founder-director of iDiscoveri XSEED Preschool, Sector 46 (estb.2007), is not unsatisfied with this decade-old pre-primary’s #2 ranking and high ratings on eight parameters of ECCE excellence. “We are pleased with our #2 ranking for the third consecutive year. I attribute this achievement to our supportive parents, teachers and dedicated support staff who have helped us through this journey. At iDiscoveri, our goal is to let children learn joyously at their own pace according to the XSEED experiential learning curriculum. Currently, we are developing a unique early years learning programme based on every child’s individual interests,” says Gauba, an alumna of Delhi University. This preschool currently has 193 pupils mentored by 27 teachers on its muster roll.
Further down the 19-strong league table of proprietary pre-primaries, there are only minor changes. The Sixth Element, South City-1 is ranked #6 (5), Salwan Montessori, Sector 5 #7 (6), Intellitots Early Learning Centre, Sector 28 #8 (7), Klay Prep Care and Day Care, Sector 49 #9 (8), and Apple Blossom Early Learning Centre & Day Care, Sector 46 #9 (7) and GD Goenka La Petite, Sohna Road #11 (9). The Knowledge Bus Global Preschool, Sector 54 at #12 (11) is tied with Maple Bear, Ansal Plaza, Palam Vihar. Moreover, two previously unranked pre-primaries — Modern Montessori International, DLF Phase I (#10) and The Knowledge Bus Global Preschool, DLF Phase 2 (#14) — have been included in this year’s league table.
FRANCHISED PRESCHOOLS
Although 634 parents with preschool children, principals and teachers rated and ranked 19 proprietary preschools of this new steel-n-glass city, only seven franchised pre-primaries in Gurgaon are sufficiently well-known to be included in the franchised preschools category (pre-primaries rated by less than 30 respondents are not included in the league table).
The feature of this year’s franchised preschool rankings of Gurgaon is the great leap forward of the previously unranked The Shri Ram Wonder Years (TSWY), Sector 54 as the city’s #1 franchised preschool in lieu of EuroKids, Sohna Road which has since downed shutters. Otherwise, the Gurgaon franchised preschool league table differs only marginally from last year. TSWY is followed by Kidzee, DLF 1 which is ranked a notch higher at #2 (3 in 2016) with Mother’s Pride, DLF yielding rank this year to be voted #3 (2). Completing the shortlist of seven ranked preschools are Little Millennium, Sector 14 (4) and EuroKids, Palam Vihar (5) tied at #4 followed by two other Mother’s Pride preschools in Sector 52 and 54.
Deepali Karnwal, chief executive of the year-old The Shri Ram Wonder Years, Sector 54 (estb.2016) — a franchisee of Shriram Educare and the highly respected Shri Ram group of K-12 schools — is overjoyed about TSWY being voted #1 this year. “We are elated by the #1 ranking and top ratings on nine parameters of ECCE excellence. We extend our deepest gratitude to EducationWorld for recognising our efforts. This recognition will motivate our dedicated teachers to work harder to retain the #1 ranking next year. I am specially pleased that TSWY is top-rated on the parameter of child safety and hygiene because we have invested heavily in CCTV cameras, a fire management system, air purifiers, parent portal and mobile app, SMS service, to safeguard our children. I am also delighted that we are ranked #1 under the parameters of teacher competence and development because our teachers play a major role in constantly improving our curriculum based on the Play-way and Montessori methodologies,” says Karnwal.
Similarly, Sarika Bharani, a commerce and business management alumna of Delhi University and IMT, Ghaziabad and co-promoter and principal of the Little Millennium, Sector 14, is pleased that her preschool has retained its #4 ranking in 2017-18. “First and foremost I wish to thank our parents, children and hardworking team for their great support to this school. Although, we expected to improve our ranking this year, our Top 5 ranking will spur us to improve under each parameter,” says Bharani.
Adds co-promoter and director Bhavana Ahluwalia: “We are especially pleased about the highest score awarded to us under the parameters of special needs education and value for money as we believe in providing excellent early childhood education at affordable price.”
To read the EW Gurgaon Preschool Rankings 2017 please visit: http://www.educationworld.in/rank-preschool/gurgaon/2017.html