Mr. Bhansali, a senior at B.D. Somani International School in south Mumbai, believes his candidacy was buoyed by the fact that he had pursued the International Baccalaureate diploma instead of the conventional Indian state-certified board curriculum that is the prevailing standard here.
“I always knew I would do the I.B.,” Mr. Bhansali said between classes. “It gave me flexibility and the ability to study what I wanted to, like English, maths, French, biology and economics. And it has international recognition.”
Mr. Bhansali is among a growing number of affluent students across India electing to pursue an I.B. education instead of the local curriculum prescribed by Indian schools.
The I.B., founded in 1968 in Geneva, provides schools with four programs: one for primary school students, one for middle school students, a high school diploma program for those in Grades 11 and 12, and a career-related certificate.
Increasingly, the I.B. high school diploma is being recognized by university admissions offices as a standard by which they can measure students from different countries with different domestic exam systems. Teenagers in the developing world looking to study in the West, in particular, are choosing the I.B. over local programs. Yet others are looking to the I.B. as a modern alternative to local systems that are more based on rote learning.
Parmeet Shah, currently a senior at Yale University, finished his schooling at the Dhirubhai Ambani International School and explained why he had chosen the I.B. program.
“It seemed like the most superior program in terms of how updated it was, how it did not rely on rote memorization, and the number of subjects offered,” he responded in an e-mail from New Haven, Connecticut. “I wasn’t 100 percent sure that the I.B. is the best program, but all the best schools in the country seem to be adopting it, so that was another key factor.” He cited his frustration with the Indian school board examination system, saying he “wanted something better.”
Schools in India are responding to a growing need for different educational options. The number of schools across India offering I.B. grew from 10 in 2002 to 97 in 2012, according to the International Baccalaureate Organization.
Sebastien Bernard, a spokesman for the I.B. Global Center in Singapore, said by telephone that India, China and Australia were the top three “hot” markets for their organization.
Within India, Mumbai leads other cities in program growth, with 38 I.B. programs offered in 2012, up from 14 five years earlier. It is followed by Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi.
“The driving force started quite early in Mumbai,” Ian Chambers, director for the Asia-Pacific at the I.B, said by telephone. “It is an outward-focused, cosmopolitan city.”
Mr. Chambers believe that the I.B.’s rising popularity is being driven by evolving parental attitudes toward learning. “There has been a change in mind-set over the past few years,” he said.
India’s burgeoning prosperity has given parents choices in primary and secondary education that were hard to imagine even a decade ago. The selection of an I.B. education seems to reflect a greater focus on flexibility and openness, as opposed to the more rigid, test-driven approach traditionally associated with Indian teaching methods, interviews in Mumbai with parents, students and school administrators indicate.
They said that the system offered better student-to-teacher ratios, and a more holistic and enquiry-based system of learning. Yet the program is often tagged as elitist because of its expense.