In the authoritative EducationWorld-C fore India’s Most Respected Schools Survey 2011, Ahlcon International School, Delhi (estb.2001) was ranked among the Top 10 day schools of Delhi and among the Top 20 in north India

Within a decade after it was promoted by the Shanti Devi Progressive Education Society — a trust constituted by Dr. Rohini Ahluwalia, chairperson of Ahlcon Parenterals Ltd (revenue: Rs.68 crore in fiscal 2010-11) — Ahlcon International School (estb. 2001) has won golden opinions as a top-ranked CBSE-affiliated K-12 co-educational day school of the national capital.

Last year in the authoritative EducationWorld-C fore India’s Most Respected Schools Survey 2011, Ahlcon International (mission statement: “to establish Ahlcon International School as a world class centre of learning, a leader in imparting joyful, relevant and values-based education to each child and ensure complete fulfillment of the aspirations of all stakeholders”) was ranked among the Top 10 day schools of Delhi and among the Top 20 in north India. More pertinently, on the parameter of leadership and management quality, it was ranked first all-India (together with five other day schools), and fourth on the parameter of providing students/parents value for money. Earlier in 2010, the school received the International School Award (ISA) of the British Council making it eligible to participate in international projects with K-12 schools beyond national borders.

Ashok Pandey, an alumnus of Allahabad University who began his career as a teacher in Mayo College, Ajmer (1985-91), was founder-principal of DPS, Jammu (1999-2003) and put in teaching and administrative stints with the Indian International School, Dammam, Saudi Arabia (1991-97) and the Amity Group (1997-99), was appointed principal of Ahlcon International (AI) in 2003. Almost a decade after he assumed charge of the school which has 2,300 boys and girls mentored by 140 teachers on its muster rolls, Pandey is “very satisfied” with the speed with which AI has made it to the Top 10 league tables of most schools rating and ranking publications. “Of course the management of this relatively new school is very satisfied with the Top 10 ranking awarded by EducationWorld and Hindustan Times. But this rapid rise in public esteem has imposed a heavy responsibility upon us to move further up the rankings. To achieve this we are sharpening our focus on values education, and capacity building in terms of infrastructure augmentation and teacher training and development,” he says.

According to Pandey, the distinguishing features of Ahlcon International School, Delhi include the heavy emphasis the school’s management places on values and culturally-rooted education, child-centricism, parental involvement with children’s broad-based education, and innovations in teaching. Yet he believes that the “truly differentiating characteristic of Ahlcon International is the management’s enthusiastic embrace of new technologies to track the academic progress of every child to realise her full potential”.

“To this end we have installed the (managing, scheduling, tracking, analysing and reporting) software of the New York-based new technologies company MGRM Net which tracks, analyses and monitors the academic progress of every student from the time of admission until graduation. This integrated smart card-driven technology which also tracks the books drawn from the library by every student, enables teachers to monitor their progress, take timely remedial action and also discover their aptitudes and intelligences. Moreover every teacher has to undergo 15 hours of intensive in-service training per term in addition to participating in external workshops and seminars,” says Pandey, who adds that the management has signed teacher training and development agreements with the University of Malta, Management Development Institute, Singapore, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, UK and the environment department of the Delhi state government.

AI’s focus on child-centric education and continuous teacher training and development is supported by massive investment (project cost: Rs.100 crore) in infrastructure facilities. Compactly constructed on a two-acre site in east Delhi with a built-up area of 605,000 sq. ft, the school offers 94 fully-wired classrooms, nine science, biology and math labs with 75 computer terminals and separate English and German language labs.

As a culturally-sensitive institution, co-curricular education is accorded high priority in AI. An active environment education faculty promotes field trips and green campus practices with students and teachers encouraged to participate in inter-school, zonal, state, national and international competitions. Professional instructors supervise courses in arts and crafts, sculpture, music and dance and drama activities up to middle school, with students given freedom to choose options according to aptitude thereafter.

Despite being limited by the lack of a standard-size playing field, the AI management gives due importance to sports education with excellent facilities provided for swimming, basketball, squash, tennis, yoga, judo and roller-skating. Another contemporary feature is an air rifle and pistol-shooting range.

With AI having expeditiously sealed its place among Delhi’s Top 10 day schools, Dr. Rohini Ahluwalia, promoter-chairperson of the school, is drafting a plan to promote new K-12 schools based on the successful AI model. “The demand for affordably-priced, quality education-dispensing schools is becoming increasingly pressing. Therefore, we are planning to roll out three new schools in the Delhi-NCR region in the next five years. We would prefer to promote them under the Central government’s PPP model, but this initiative has been in cold storage since 2007. The demand for private school education is rising across the country. Policy changes to facilitate private education initiatives at the Centre and in the states are overdue to make the Right to Education Act a reality for India’s children,” says Ahluwalia.

Autar Nehru (Delhi)