Page 328 - EducationWorld September 2023

Cover Story EW CO-ED DAY-CUM-BOARDING SCHOOLS RANKINGS 2023-24

INDIA’S TOP DAY-CUM-

BOARDING SCHOOLS

mong primary-secondary Because they offer the advantages of valuable gender
education institutions, interaction, life skills education, the excellent co-curricular
day-cum-boarding schools
Aoffer children several and sports infrastructure of boarding schools and student
unique advantages. Firstly, without body diversity, day-cum-boarding schools are becoming
explicitly stating as much, they are increasingly popular countrywide
invariably liberal co-ed institutions
which inculcate mutual respect and
modern egalitarian ideals in children
of both sexes from young age. Hav-
ing experienced a prolonged all-boys
boarding school experience, your
correspondent can vouch for the ad-
vantages in terms of valuable gender
interaction and life skills that co-ed
schools invariably confer upon their
students.
Secondly, because they have large
contingents of boarders, they offer ex-
cellent co-curricular and sports infra-
structure that boarding schools pro-
vide, to day scholars. This is beneficial
for day scholars who are unlikely to
have access to a wide range of extra-
curricular educational activities in
ordinary day schools. Third, the daily
presence of day scholars adds to stu-
dents’ body diversity on campus and
gives boarders who would otherwise
be a homogenous lot of children from The Emerald Heights’ Siddharth Singh: “genuinely integrated holistic education”
upscale families, the opportunity to
mix with and interact with day schol-
ars from diverse income groups and that following complaints from rela- schools this year. The new genre
cultural backgrounds. Moreover con- tively newly promoted Day, Board- superbly furbished The Emerald
temporary day-cum-boarding schools ing and International schools that Heights International School,
offer the option of weekly boarding rating and ranking them with vin- Indore (EHIS) and Sai Interna-
which reduces separation of parents tage schools, some of which were tional, Bhubaneswar have retained
and children that are a feature of established more than a century ago, their joint #1 ranking, followed by
boarding schools. provided an “uneven playing field,” Greenwood High, Bangalore and
All these advantages perhaps ex- after much deliberation and debate DPS, R.K. Puram, Delhi jointly
plain the increasing popularity of day- vintage/legacy day-cum-boarding ranked #2. The incommunicado Palli
cum-boarding schools that offer chil- schools — over 90 years — are sepa- koodam School, Kottayam (Kera-
dren the best of both worlds. That’s rately ranked inter se. la) is promoted to #3 (cf. #4 last year)
also why the EducationWorld league Against this backdrop, there is only and DPS, Vasant Kunj, Delhi to
table of (co-ed) day-cum-boarding minor change in the seating order at #4 (#5) together with Neerja Modi
schools is lengthening year by year. the top table of India’s most admired School, Jaipur promoted to #5 (6).
Moreover, it’s important to note (non-vintage) Day-cum-boarding “I am delighted that your knowl-

328 EDUCATIONWORLD SEPTEMBER 2023