Page 7 - Alka Sharma

ALKA SHARMA

Chairperson, Central Public School, Udaipur

I n Udaipur (pop. 642,518), aka the City of Lakes in water-scarce Rajasthan, Alka Sharma is
widely acclaimed as a pioneer of English-medium K-12 education. In 1989, she promoted Cen-
tral Public School (CPS), the state’s first CBSE-affiliated school and introduced new genre holistic
education combining academic rigour with sports, co-curricular and life skills education. Since then
over the past three decades under her leadership CPS has evolved into a model co-ed day-cum-
boarding school which has inspired the promotion of several other CBSE-affiliated schools across
the state. In the latest EducationWorld India School Rankings 2019-20, CPS is ranked Udaipur’s #1
day-cum-boarding school and #5 in Rajasthan (pop. 78 million).

Encouraged by enthusiastic public response to CPS and discerning demand from the city’s aspira-
tional middle class parents for international K-12 education and certification, in 2011 Sharma pro-
moted her second venture — Rockwoods School affiliated with CBSE and the UK-based Cambridge
Assessment International Education. Currently, these two highly respected K-12 schools have an
aggregate enrolment of 3,500 children mentored by 200 teachers.

“In its time, CPS was a pioneer institution, the first to provide high-quality English medium K-12
education with almost as much importance accorded to co-curricular and sports education. Now
with the establishment of Rockwoods we have pioneered provision of international pedagogies
and curriculums to the citizenry of Udaipur. I am fairly satisfied with the progress and evolution of
both these schools. They have developed into well-respected K-12 institutions with a reputation for
equipping children with 21st century skills and shaping them to assume leadership positions in the
rapidly globalising world,” says Sharma.