Most, if not all, want to send their children to the “best” school possible. If you are new in a place it is very difficult to find out what is the “best” school. Also, with all the different education boards the choices are many. Here I list two schools that I consider to be the best ICSE schools in Pune, India. There is also a link that will give you a list of all the ICSE schools in Pune, India.
Currently there are 14 schools in Pune that have ICSE affiliation. There would be other schools that follow an ICSE curriculum while they wait to recieve their affiliation, or that are too new to apply for affiliation as yet. (To view a list of all 14 schools, you can visit the ICSE website and click on “Locate a Council School” in the left corner.)
To be very honest, I don’t have first-hand information for some of these schools (and second-hand information is not always reliable. So definitely do your own research as well). However, based on my observations and research I have come to an opinion of what I consider the best ICSE schools in Pune. My idea of a “best” school does not involve how many students get high percentages in the board exams. I have a certain set of criteria that makes a school “best” for me. Some of this criteria is (in random order of priority):
- student-teacher ratio (actual, not what’s on a website or in some printed brochure. No matter how good a teacher, s/he cannot be effective in a classroom of 50 kids.)
- excellent teachers, who truly know their subject
- schools open to innovative methods of teaching
- teachers that nurture and care
- children are respected (no capital punishment)
Unfortunately, a good many schools here have 45 or more kids to a classroom. I have physically counted 50 kids per classroom in one school, and 60 kids per classroom in another. (The Principals of both these schools had reassured me that there are no more than 40 children in each classroom since that is what the ICSE regulation is.)
Taking all this into consideration, I would consider St. Mary’s School and VIBGYOR High to be the best ICSE Schools in Pune. St. Mary’s is excellent in academics, and for those of you looking for a very traditional school (the kind you probably went to) it is definitely the best. VIBGYOR High is still awaiting ICSE affiliation, but it is definitely the best non-traditional school that follows an ICSE curriculum.
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