For ICT and other industry professionals from all over the country, the blooming English-medium preschools of Bangalore have come as manna from heaven. Here are Bangalore’s most loved preschools 2017-18

Always a stronghold of English language learning despite the efforts of frogs-in-a-well Kannada language chauvinists who have ruined the public education system of Karnataka (pop. 61 million), private English-medium schools have continued to bloom in this once garden city — since transformed into a potholed garbage city — which has emerged as the ICT (information and communication technologies) capital of India, and arguably Asia. The ICT boom has attracted IT professionals and engineers from all over the country and prompted transnational IT/ICT companies such as Microsoft, Dell and Texas Instruments among others, to establish their India offices in Bangalore. These professionals have little time or patience for the convoluted arguments of the country’s education pundits who can’t seem to grasp the basic reality that Indian citizens need strong English language skills to communicate with each other, let alone with the rest of the world, and continue to plug vernacular languages as media of instruction in early childhood and primary education. 

For these professionals of the ICT industry which has created over 2 million jobs in this city, the blooming English-medium preschools of Bangalore — mercifully pre-primary education has thus far remained free of the Midas-in-reverse attentions of the state’s notoriously extortionist education bureaucracy — have come as manna from heaven. Indeed, some of the garden/garbage city’s top-ranked preschools are as good as any in the world in terms of child care and pedagogical practices. 

Therefore, the annual EW India Preschool Rankings generate considerable excitement and enthusiasm within the teachers and parents communities of the city. And although Bangalore hosts hundreds of pre-primaries operating in every nook and corner, the number sufficiently well-known to be rated on ten parameters of preschool education excellence — competence of teachers, teacher welfare, infrastructure, individual attention to students, value for money, parental involvement, innovative teaching, child safety and hygiene, leadership quality and special needs education etc — add up to only about 75-80. These sufficiently well-known preschools with citywide reputations are rated and ranked separately in two categories — owned/proprietary and franchised.

Owned/proprietary preschools 

The Top 5 table of the 39-strong league table of Bangalore’s sufficiently well-known owned/proprietary preschools in 2017-18 is a mirror image of last year’s. Nor is there much of a change in the Top 10 league table except that the previously unranked Vidyasagar Preschool, the lower-profile feeder pre-primary of the low-profile Vidyashilp Academy ranked #5 among the city’s primary-secondary day schools in the EW India School Rankings 2017-18, is ranked #8 this year. In particular, the Neev group of high-end preschools led by its flagship Neev, Indiranagar (estb. 2005), are dominant with three of the group’s four pre-primaries ranked among the Top 5. 

The Indus Early Learning Centres of the Bangalore-based Indus Trust, promoter of the garden city’s highly venerated International Baccalaureate (Geneva)-affiliated Indus International School (estb. 2003) ranked the country’s #1 international day-cum-boarding school for six consecutive years in the annual EW India School Rankings, has done almost as well with three of its pre-primaries ranked among the Top 10 this year. 

“I am thankful and grateful to the sample respondents who have once again ranked Neev, Indiranagar the city’s premier preschool. It is reaffirmation that we are on the right track and preparing competent and confident children ready to derive the full benefit of primary-secondary education,” says Priti Anand, a science and education alumna of Delhi University who acquired several years of valuable early years teaching experience in the Springdales School, Delhi, Ireland and the US before she signed up as a teacher with Neev, Indiranagar in 2005. Currently, Anand is the area director supervising the operations of four high-end (Rs.2-6 lakh per year) Neev preschools and the IB (Geneva)-affiliated Neev Academy (estb. 2011) promoted by Lupin Pharma heiress Kavita Sabharwal (nee Gupta). 

Anand is specially satisfied that Neev, Indiranager is top-rated on the parameters of safety and hygiene, teacher competence and parental involvement as they fulfil Neev’s goal of adhering to the “sacred triangle” of child care, institutional obligation and parental co-option. “We believe that the physical safety and health of our children, teacher selection, motivation and development in terms of stimulating their emotional energy and passion for ECCE and co-operation of parents — the sacred triangle — is central to our mission of nurturing competent, confident children from youngest ages,” explains Anand. Currently, the four Neev preschools and the Neev Academy have an aggregate enrolment of 550 children mentored by 95 teachers. 

A similar awareness of the critical importance of professionally administered early childhood care and education and passion for excellence drives Kiran Pai, a science graduate of the American School of Education, Dubai with a Masters in education from Monash University, Australia and director of the Vidyasagar Preschool, Hebbal (estb. 1982). “It’s wonderful to find Vidyasagar ranked among the Top 10 preschools of Bangalore after all these years. It’s a major morale booster,” says Pai, who was appointed director of this pre-primary, which provides ECCE to 1,000 children (in two shifts) nurtured by 32 teachers, in 2006. 

Like Anand, Pai believes that the three pillars of early childhood education excellence are teacher competence and development, parental involvement and safety and hygiene. “These parameters will be the focus areas of Vidyasagar in the coming years,” says Pai. 

Further down the 39-strong league table of sufficiently well-reputed pre-primaries of Bangalore, most have retained or marginally improved their last year’s rankings, except that the previously unranked Mont Ivy Preschool, Whitefield has risen high in the esteem of the informed public to be ranked among the 2017-18 Top 10. Beyond the Top 10, the proprietary Oi Playschool, J.P. Nagar and Jain Toddlers, Jayanagar (the feeder preschool of the highly ranked K-12 Jain International Residential School) have been promoted several places to be ranked #14 and #15 this year. Moreover, the previously unranked Heritage Kids, Bannerghatta Road and Element Kids, Sarjapur Road have done well to debut among the Top 20. 

Franchised preschools

In sharp contrast with the 2017-18 Top 10 table of Bangalore’s proprietary preschools which is almost a replica of 2016, except at the very top where Seed International, OMBR Layout has retained its #1 ranking, the top table of franchised schools has experienced a sea change this year. The Top 5 table has been stormed by franchised pre-primaries of the Hyderabad-based People Combine Educational Initiatives Ltd, a low-profile company which has promoted a spate of pre-primaries under the name and style of Open Interactive (Oi) pre-primaries and Oakridge International K-12 schools in peninsular India. This year, three People Combine preschools — Oi, RMV Extension ranked #2 (cf. 22 in 2016), Oi Playschool, Sahakarnagar #3 (22) and Oi, N.R. Colony #5 (18) — have been promoted to the Top 5 table by Bangalore’s 729 informed sample respondents. 

“With the Bangalore rankings having experienced considerable churn this year, I’m very pleased and gratified that we have been voted the city’s #1 franchisee preschool by a wide margin once again. For this achievement, I must thank our franchisor, Seed, Adyar, Chennai which has provided us with an excellent curriculum framework and valuable support. I am particularly pleased that Seed International has been voted #1 on the parameter of individual attention to students. I believe this is the most important attribute of a preschool. If teachers pay attention to each child’s development, they will ensure that they are up to speed with the latest pedagogies in early childhood education, provide innovative education, and ensure maximum levels of safety and hygiene — everything falls into place,” says R.K. Deepalakshmi, an alumna of NIT, Trichy and former Citibank, Tokyo manager who switched tracks in favour of ECCE and served as principal of SEED, Chennai prior to promoting Seed International, OMBR Layout in 2009. 

Unsurprisingly, Vijaya Chitra Kamlesh, an alumna of Bangalore University and IIM-Bangalore and currently director of planning and finance at RCI (India), a subsidiary of the US-based RCI Inc, a pioneer in the holiday homes time sharing business, who promoted Oi Playschool, RMV Extension in 2012 (and Oi Playschool, HRBR Layout ranked #25 in 2013) together with her friend and partner Priya Dinesh who is the principal of Oi, RMV Extension, is delighted with the “surprise and unexpected promotion” to the Top 5 table this year. “The major share of the credit for our dramatically improved ranking must be given to our principal Priya Dinesh and her team of 12 teachers and the excellent curriculum given to us by People Combine, which runs the Oakridge International and Oi chains of preschools across the country. Our franchisors are constantly improving and evolving the Oi preschool curriculum and support us with teacher training programmes and workshops. I’m specially glad that we have been highly rated on the parameters of leadership and safety and hygiene. If the leadership is good, a preschool will create a safe and hygienic environment for children and ensure that teachers’ skills and competence are constantly improving,” says Kamlesh. 

Beyond the Top 5 and further down the 31-strong league table of Bangalore’s most admired franchised preschools, Podar Jumbo Kids preschools have favourably impressed the informed public of this once garden city. The previously unranked Podar Jumbo Kids, Indiranagar and Podar Jumbo Kids Plus, Koramangala have made impressive debuts within the Top 10 at rank #6 and #9 respectively. Moreover the previously unranked PJK, Malleshwaram is ranked #17. 

Likewise, franchisee preschools of the Delhi-based Maple Bear India have also impressed the Bangalore public with the Maple Bear Canadian Preschool (MBCP), Whitefield ranked higher at #8 (11) and the previously unranked MBCP, Kanakapura Road ranked #11 this year. On the other hand, the franchisee preschools of the well-established EuroKids have been obliged to yield some ground. 

Also read: Bangalore’s best preschools 2018-19