Among Pune’s best preschools 2017-18, a total of 24 sufficiently well-known pre-primaries are ranked and rated by 522 parents with preschool children and 61 teachers/principals polled by field personnel of C fore, Delhi Maharashtra’s second largest city after Mumbai, Pune (pop. 4 million) has over the years emerged as an education hub and hosts several top-ranked higher education institutions including Symbiosis International University, College of Engineering Pune, Armed Forces Medical College, National Defence Academy and the Film and Television Institute of India among others, which attract an estimated 20,000 foreign students annually. Also a centre of the manufacturing, IT and knowledge industries which employ highly-qualified new-age industry professionals, Pune is one of the country’s youngest cities with 33 percent of its population below 30 years of age. Consequently, it’s no surprise that growing demand from young parents for professionally administered high-quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) has transformed Pune into a hotspot of preschool education. A host of pre-primaries — proprietary and franchise — have mushroomed in the city offering a range of ECCE pedagogies and options to young parents. In the EW Pune Preschool Rankings 2017-18, a total of 24 (cf. 10 in 2014) sufficiently well-known pre-primaries are ranked and rated by 522 parents with preschool children and 61 teachers/principals polled by field personnel of Delhi-based market research firm C fore. Proprietary preschools Since the EW Pune Preschool Rankings were introduced in 2013, Leapbridge International Preschool, Kalyani Nagar (estb. 2010) has been ranked the city’s #1 preschool. However, in the past two years it has been forced to share the top rank with other preschools. In 2015, Leapbridge was jointly ranked #1 with Indus Early Learning Centre (IELC), Koregaon Park and in 2016 it was tied at #1 with Primrose Nursery, Koregaon Park. This year once again it shares the top ranking with IELC, Koregaon Park followed by Primrose Nursery at #2 and debutant Global Montessori Plus, Chinchwad at #3. Promoted in 2014 by the Bangalore-based Indus Trust, which also runs the top-ranked Indus International schools in Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad and IELC centres in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai (all ranked among the Top 10 in their cities), IELC, Koregaon Park is also top rated on seven of the ten parameters of ECCE excellence. “We are overjoyed that your informed sample respondents have restored IELC, Koregaon Park to its rightful #1 position this year. IELC is a 21st century pre-primary which provides youngest children with foundational early years education necessary to emerge as leaders of tomorrow. Our #1 rank on most of your parameters is validation of Indus’ holistic approach to early childhood education with our well-trained teachers delivering hands-on learning to children in a safe and hygienic campus. In particular our focus on continuous teacher training is exemplary — recently some of our teachers visited schools in Finland to learn and adapt their best ECCE practices,” says Rachna Gupta, an alumna of IGNOU, Delhi with a Cambridge International Diploma and centre head of IELC, Koregaon Park, whose…
