Page 246 - EW September 2024

Cover Story EW CO-ED DAY-CUM-BOARDING SCHOOLS RANKINGS 2024-25

INDIA’S MOST ADMIRED

DAY-CUM-BOARDING SCHOOLS

Emerald Heights’ Siddharth Singh (centre): consistent #1 SAI International’s Silpi Sahoo: excellent foundation
Usually sited in green belt peripheries of India’s ill-planned schools. Emerald Heights Inter-
metropolitan cities, day-cum-boarding schools are popular national School, Indore (EHIS),
with high-income households in road-traffic choked metros. and SAI International School,
Bhubaneswar (SAIS) retain their
Moreover they are invariably co-educational, sparing joint #1 ranking.
siblings pain of separation Unsurprisingly, Emerald Heights
awarded highest scores under the
parameters of sports education, in-
ay-cum-boarding schools ies are also becoming popular among frastructure and special needs educa-
which provide the advan- high-income households in road- tion, has 790 boarders from 15 states
tage of a wider, more di- traffic choked metros. Increasingly, across the country and six nationali-
Dverse students body as they high-income households anxious to ties. Its director Siddharth Singh
attract local day scholars and boarders spare their progeny the agony of the who took over this modest day school
from far-flung cities and small towns long daily school bus commute, are promoted in 1984 by his parents, in
and often from abroad, are becom- enrolling them as weekly boarders 2011, is an economics and education
ing increasingly popular across the who come home every weekend. alum of Stonybrook University, USA
country. They are usually equipped Moreover, latter-day day-cum- and the Harvard School of Education.
with better infrastructure and sports boarding schools are invariably co-ed- Under his stewardship, this CBSE and
and games facilities than day schools ucational sparing siblings the pain of IB-affiliated day-cum-boarding school
simpliciter because boarders have to separation and offering male children set in an emerald green 40-acre cam-
be kept busy and active after school the opportunity to learn gender egali- pus in suburban Indore has been top-
hours. These superior facilities are tarianism and respect for girl children ranked in the annual EWISR for the
also accessible to day scholars who as from early age. past three years consecutively (with 1+
a consequence receive a more well- With a new tribe of highly-educat- accolade awarded for innovation and
rounded education than they would ed school promoters having entered capacity expansion).
otherwise. K-12 education, there’s no change The record of SAIS promoted in
Day-cum-boarding schools usu- from last year at the very top of the 2006 by the late Bijoy Kumar Sahoo
ally sited in green belt peripheries of 2024-25 league table comprising 185 (BKS), whose promising career as a
India’s ill-planned metropolitan cit- most respected day-cum-boarding national pace-setter of K-12 educa-

246 EDUCATIONWORLD SEPTEMBER 2024