DPS International, Pushp Vihar, Delhi

The first CIE, UK-affiliated international primary-secondary of the 200-strong DPS chain, DPS-I has quickly emerged as one of Delhi NCR’s most preferred international schools  Swati Roy

One of 11 ‘core’ schools promoted by the highly-respected Delhi Public School Society comprising over 200 owned and franchised schools in India and abroad, Delhi Public School International (DPS-I, estb.2003) is the society’s first primary-secondary affiliated with an international exam board — Cambridge International Examinations, UK. With DPS branded schools, most of whom are affiliated with the pan-India Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), having earned an excellent reputation for offering high-quality schooling to children of India’s upwardly mobile middle-class, it’s unsurprising that DPS-I has also quickly emerged as one of the national capital region’s most preferred international schools.

In the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2015, DPS-I is ranked #5 in Delhi NCR in the category of international day schools, and #1 nationally on the parameter of value for money (tuition fees: Rs.1,32,000-1,78,000 per annum) for four years consecutively (2012-15). Currently, the K-12 co-educational day school has 950 students from 20 countries mentored by 95 teachers on its muster rolls.

“DPS International was promoted as a response to pressing middle class demand for international school education in the national capital. I’m satisfied that over the past 13 years we have succeeded in offering internationally comparable education at an affordable price. This is in sync with the DPS motto of ‘service before self’. Beyond the standard academic curriculum, we consciously develop our students’ decision-making skills, integrity, inculcate respect and appreciation of different cultures, and an awareness of environmental and economic issues,” says Amita Mishra, principal of DPS-I since 2008. An English literature postgraduate of Lady Shri Ram College for Women and a certified school leader of the Principals’ Training Centre, Miami, Mishra has over 25 years of teaching and administrative experience with the DPS Society during which she has served as vice principal of the highly-ranked DPS, R.K. Puram, and headmistress of DPS, East of Kailash.

A strong proponent of experiential and application-based learning, Mishra says the CIE curriculum is academically rigorous and life skills-oriented. “In the pre-primary section, we follow the Canadian Maple Bear Programme, which prepares youngest children for the CIE primary-secondary curriculum. Moreover, the school’s 95 highly-qualified teachers regularly attend training programmes conducted by the DPS Society and CIE,” she adds.

Evidently, DPS-I’s investment in continuous teacher training has paid rich dividends. In CIE’s IGCSE class X exam of 2015, 76 percent of DPS-I students were graded A or A+. Likewise in the class XII (A level) exam, 65 percent of its students scored above grade B. Consequently DPS-I student graduates are welcomed into top-ranked foreign higher education institutions including Pennsylvania, New York, Columbia, and Boston universities in the US and Cambridge University, King’s College London, UCL and Imperial College in the UK apart from premier Indian institutions such as St. Stephen’s, Delhi College of Engineering, and Lady Shri Ram College.

Sprawled across two campuses — junior school (nursery-class IV) in R.K. Puram and senior school (classes V-XII) in Pushp Vihar, DPS-I’s testing academic programme is enabled by state-of-the-art infrastructure and facilities. The compact 3.9-acre campus in Pushp Vihar houses 31 air-conditioned wifi-enabled classrooms, dedicated rooms for activities such as music, dance, drama, and a 450-seat auditorium. The school’s three libraries are stocked with 50,000 volumes and subscribe to 30 journals while customised language, science, mathematics and social sciences laboratories enable experiential learning.

Over 2.5 acres of the campus are set aside for sports including football, basketball, lawn tennis, table-tennis, and cricket. Sports apart, the co-curricular menu features student clubs for the performing arts, debates, robotics, environment; Model United Nations; community service activities; student exchange programmes and workshops on story-writing, animation, photography and painting.

Despite DPS-I having quickly established a reputation for high-quality but affordably-priced international education in the national capital, the management is committed to continuous improvement. “Even though we are one of the youngest of DPS schools, we are well known and respected as a genuinely international school. Our aim is to continuously improve, enrich and upgrade pedagogies and processes to develop students into confident adults with the skills to take leadership positions in the rapidly globalising world,” says Mishra.