Background

Abacus was founded in June 1987. It was started to bring new thinking into the life of a school, to try out new ideas in education, and to evolve an intensely child focussed school.

The school began in a refurbished garage in R.A Puram, moved to Adyar, and came to fruition in Perungudi.

In the early years the school ran with financial assistance from International Services, Chennai and is now run by Abacus Trust, a not-for-profit public, charitable, educational trust. The school charges fees to cover its running costs. Admission fees, which are part of the regular fee structure, are put into FDs and the interest earned from it subsidizes the running costs.

As the school offers a specific methodology and cultivates a certain inclusive and democratic ethos it is considered important that the school be affordable to parents who would support its goals. Hence fees are kept as low as possible and funds carefully managed to cover infrastructure and maintenance costs.

We do not ask for donations unless we have a specific project that needs to be funded - the last time being when we put up the two buildings the school is currently housed in. At that time donations were sought through corporates, through events and with parents all donating equally. We have 80G exemption for all donations.

We would like the school to remain small with a low student teacher ratio.