Panchgani is a popular hill resort which has developed in recent times as a tourist destination close to Mahabaleshwar. It was originally developed by the British when they were in search of a nearby area to Mahabaleshwar to inhabit during the heavy monsoon season of Mahabaleshwar.

British superintendent John Chesson is credited with discovering Panchgani. He found this nameless area surrounding five villages amongst five hills in the Sahyadri region – Dhandeghar, Godavli, Amral, Khingar and Taighat. Thus, Panchgani was formed as an ideal place for the ailing to recuperate as well as a perfect getaway from the nearby cities.

Located at a distance of 285 km from Mumbai and 100 km from Pune, Panchgani first flourished with many schools that the British set up here for the education of European boys and girls. Amongst Panchgani schools, The Kimmins School was started in 1890 here. One of the first schools here, it was then affiliated to Cambridge University. In 1902 the boys’ section was separated from this school to become St. Peter’s High School while Kimmins remained as an exclusive school for girls.

The Roman Catholic Order of nuns also started a school here for girls, known as The St. Joseph’s Convent Girls High School, also affiliated to the Cambridge University. These schools used to have their examinations in December whereby the question papers used to arrive from England by sea and the answer sheets were also sent back to England and results declared by June.

Attracted by the English Public School model that these initial schools had, other communities started building schools here. The Parsi School was the first after the English schools, also known as the Bilimoria School. The Muslim School was known as the Union High School and lately is known as the Anjuman School. The school built by the Hindu community was modeled on Rabindranath Tagore’s Shantiniketan and was called Sanjeevan Vidyalaya. All these schools were modeled after the English Public school system and prepared students for the matriculation examination held under the Bombay Presidency.

In the 1950s the Bahai community opened their own school here, now known as the New Era School which is one of the biggest schools in this town now. Most of these schools came up as boarding schools in Panchgani which aided the overall development of children away from the distractions of the city life.

There are about forty Panchgani schools now, some holding on to their age old tradition while others boast of world class infrastructure and state of the art teaching techniques.

Related posts:

1. Panchgani Hotels
2. Panchgani Map
3. Panchgani Resorts