How Cambridge and IB schools stole hearts in India's small cities

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Mumbai: Schools affiliated to international boards are gaining traction in India's tier-II and tier-III cities as aspirational second- and third-generation business owners and professionals with higher disposable incomes send their children to these schools. These schools, which have tuition fees upwards of ₹7-9 lakh per annum, are now offering specially trained teachers—some roped in from overseas—and infrastructure on a par with their counterparts in metros.

Cities that have become popular for these schools include Coimbatore, Ooty, Kodaikanal, Pune, Amaravati, Bhopal, and Surat. “Most of the students come from Coimbatore and our fees for the junior classes are ₹2-3 lakh in tuition. We train our teachers in different international boards, but retention is a challenge in both metros and smaller cities," said Meera Bhalla, Head of School Ruh Continuum K5 Campus in Coimbatore.

The K12 school, which is part of the Shree Saraswathi Vidya Mandira (SSVM) Institutions, includes IB in its curricula. Shrewsbury International School India, a co-educational boarding school in Bhopal, will start its first batch of students from August 2025. It is charging ₹22 lakh a year including boarding fees.

“The ratio of teachers from abroad to those in India is 80:20 and the kind of infrastructure and greenery that smaller cities offer is not there in cities," said Abhishek Mohan Gupta, founder and president, Board of Management at Shrewsbury International School India. The school has just started its admission process for classes 6-12. Teachers in the international schools get a compensation that can range from ₹15-40 lakh, many of who are poached from metros to the smaller cities.