This year the seating arrangement at the Top 10 table is radically different. Ranked a modest #5 in 2015, JB Petit High for Girls, Mumbai (estb. 1860) has been voted #1 followed by La Martiniere for Girls, Kolkata (estb. 1836).

Although the great majority of greenfield schools being promoted these days are co-educational, all-girls schools are still preferred by a sizeable number of Indian households for cultural and religious reasons with many all-girls day schools – some of them over 150 years’ vintage – enjoying formidable public reputations. And if Hillary Clinton, an alumna of the all-women Wellesley College, is elected – as seems likely – America’s first woman president, all-girls education institutions may well experience a renaissance.

Since the inaugural 2013 all-girls national rankings, two Kolkata schools – Modern High School for Girls and La Martiniere for Girls – have dominated the national league table. However this year. the seating arrangement at the Top 10 table is radically different. Ranked a modest #5 in 2015, the JB Petit High School for Girls, Mumbai (estb.1860) has been voted #1 followed by La Martiniere for Girls, Kolkata. The eastern India sample respondents polled by C fore have also promoted the Modern High School for Girls, Kolkata to #3 (6) followed by Carmel Convent, Chandigarh (#4), and Loreto House, Middleton, Kolkata (5).

Tied at #6 position are St. Mary’s School, Pune and the Rajmata Krishna Kumari Girls Public School, Jodhpur which has risen from #9 last year and is also the #1 all-girls day school in the western state of Rajasthan (pop. 74 million).

“We are thrilled that JB Petit, one of the oldest girls’ educational institutions countrywide, has been accorded recognition for the high quality education we have been consistently delivering over the past 156 years. Our mission is empowerment of women through education and opportunity. Therefore, we provide an environment of creativity, freedom and joyous learning in which our students articulate their viewpoints fearlessly and develop courage of their convictions. Recently, we’ve unveiled a master plan for comprehensive redevelopment of the school under which we plan to build, expand and modernise our campus and facilities, and hopefully add an International Baccalaureate section at the Plus Two level. This bold new venture has the full support of Mumbai’s academic community”, says Benaifer P. Kutar, an alumna of SNDT University, Mumbai who signed up as teacher in 1995 and was appointed principal of the school in 2010. Sited in the bustling Fort area, in tony South Mumbai, the vintage JB Petit School has an enrolment of 917 students and 65 teachers.

Dr. Devi Kar, the highly-respected director of the CISCE-affiliated Modern High School for Girls, Kolkata (MHSG, estb.1952), has mixed feelings about this schools rollercoaster ride in the EW league tables during the past three years. “It is difficult to forget that EducationWorld ranked us #1 three years ago. So our rank has actually dropped and we have merely ‘improved’ upon our last years ranking. We just cannot fathom the reason for the changes in our fortunes year to year. However if we enjoy a good reputation it is because there’s sufficient awareness of the dedicated effort for quality improvement of all stakeholders – faculty, support staff, students, and parents. The public tends to give a lot of importance to board examination results, which have been consistently outstanding, averaging over 90 percent year on year”, says Kar, an alumna of Presidency College, Kolkata and Calcutta University who served with La Martiniere for Girls, Kolkata and Cedar Girls School, Singapore before signing up with MHSG in 2000.

Adds Damayanti Mukherjee, principal of MHSG: “In MHSG, we don’t regard cultural pursuits and sports activities as extraneous. They are central to the curriculum and given the same status as academics.”

Further down the Top 10 girls day schools league table is Jaipur’s well-known Maharani Gayatri Devi Girls School ranked #7. Sacred Heart Senior Secondary, Chandigarh and NASR School, Hyderabad are jointly ranked #8, and Villa Theresa High, Mumbai #9 and La Martiniere Girls College, Lucknow #10.

Nawab Mir Khutubuddin Khan, secretary of the NASR Education Society – which has promoted NASR Boys School (ranked #15 in the boys day category) and the K-12 CISCE-affiliated all-girls NASR School, Khairatabad (estb.1965, the alma mater of tennis star Sania Mirza) – is satisfied with the school’s #8 all-India and #1 Telangana rankings. “We are grateful for the honour bestowed upon us by the surveys knowledgeable respondents who are appreciative of our efforts to provide well-rounded education to girl children for the past 51 years. Our in-house NASR Teaching Technology is unique and focuses equally on academic rigour, extra-curricular and sports education. The top rating awarded to us on the parameter of sports education is especially satisfying because of its prime importance in our school”, says Khan.

Further down the 79-strong league table of India’s top-ranked all-girls day schools dominated by vintage convent/missionary institutions, several schools have vastly improved their ranking in 2016. Among them are Queen Mary School, Mumbai to #12 (from 19 in 2015), DAV Girls Senior Secondary, Mogappair, Chennai to #15 (22), Sacred Heart Covent, Jamshedpur to #17 (22), Mahadevi Birla World Academy, Kolkata to #20 (27) and St. Patrick’s Junior College, Agra to #22 (55).

To view EW India Girls Day Schools Rankings visit https://www.educationworld.in/rank-school/all-cities/day-school/girls/2016.html