Pune’s best preschools 2015

There’s been a spurt in the number of preschools promoted to cater to the rising demand from IT and new-age industry professionals. C fore field researchers interviewed 609 parents and teachers/principals in Pune to evaluate preschools in three separate categories. Here are Pune’s best preschools for the year 2015: The second largest academic and industrial hub (after Mumbai) of Maharashtra, Pune (pop. 9 million) is fast emerging as a centre of high-quality early childhood care and education (ECCE). Over the past decade in particular, there has been a spurt in the number of preschools promoted to cater to the huge demand for professionally administered ECCE from upwardly mobile IT and new-age industry professionals in this fast-expanding city. As a result, the number of pre-primaries rated and ranked for the first time in three new categories — proprietary, franchise, pre-primaries of composite schools — of the EW Pune Preschool Rankings 2015 has increased to 32 from a mere 10 in 2014. Owned/Proprietary Ranked Pune’s #1 among all preschools genres in 2014, it’s unsurprising that Leapbridge International Preschool, Kalyani Nagar (estb.2009) is ranked #1 in the discrete category of proprietary schools this year. A close second in this category is the 31-year-old Primrose Nursery sited in Pune’s upscale Koregaon Park, which was ranked #3 last year, followed by Vivero International, Kalyani Nagar ranked #3 this year (#6 in 2014) and Leapbridge International, Aundh at #4. Quite obviously, young parents prefer to send their children to owned/proprietary schools which dominated the 2014 league table. Though delighted that two of its preschools are ranked among the Top 4 in the city, Prriety Gosalia, chief executive officer of the Leapbridge International Group of six preschools in Pune and one in Mumbai (Leapbridge, Sion is ranked #4 in the Mumbai proprietary league table), is unsure about the utility of the sub-division exercise. “Although the new categorisation will enable parents to discern the difference between owned, franchised and pre-primaries of larger schools, it may also confuse them if two schools in the same area top the rankings in their respective categories. Rankings should be based on the quality of preschool education provided regardless of management structure. Nevertheless, we are happy the new classification hasn’t affected our pre-eminent ranking. In Leapbridge, our focus is on selecting the best qualified teachers and continuously training them in latest ECCE pedagogies,” says Gosalia, a child psychology, education management, and multiple intelligences alumna of Bombay University, and the Multiple Intelligences Institute, Singapore. Debuting in the Top 5 table of Pune’s proprietary preschools is Spring Buds International School, Nagar Road, a constituent of the Spring Buds group of four preschools in Mumbai and one in Indore with an aggregate enrolment of 4,000 youngest children. Ranked #2 on the infrastructure parameter, Spring Buds spreads across 15,000 sq. ft, offers its 200 children air-conditioned classrooms, a 1:8 teacher-pupil ratio, sand and water play facilities, soft gym and continuous CCTV surveillance. “It’s gratifying to learn that our efforts to provide high-quality early childhood education in safe,…