EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012

Conducted by the premier market research and polling company C fore, Delhi, the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012 ranks over 400 of the country’s most well-known primary-secondaries on the basis of perceptual ratings awarded by a carefully constituted sample respondents base of 3,070 parents, principals, teachers and educationists across 14 parameters of excellence. Dilip Thakore reports While economists, Central planners and other stalwarts of India’s intelligentsia argue in favour of agriculture and industrial productivity, managing inflation and fiscal deficits, cutting red tape and/or reforming the electoral system, inEducationWorld we are steadfast in our belief that the salvation and renaissance of 21st century India is dependent upon successful nurturance and development of the country’s abundant human resource endowment. Currently, the child and youth population of the nation aggregates 550 million, of whom 175 million are below 14 years of age. Unfortunately post-independence India’s purblind political class in Delhi and state capitals refuses to learn from the example of the world’s most developed nations where annual expenditure on education is 6-7 percent of GDP (gross domestic product). Which is why they are members of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) club of rich nations, and 65 years on, India isn’t. Apart from consistently highlighting the skewed development priorities of government and India’s Soviet-style Planning Commission, since 2007 this sui generis publication promoted with the mission statement to “build the pressure of public opinion to make education the No.1 item on the national agenda”, has been publishing annual league tables of India’s most respected day, legacy boarding and new genre international schools, rating and ranking them on several parameters. Moreover, driven by the belief that foundational K-12 education is of prime importance for developing India’s high-potential human resource, since 2010 we have been rating and ranking preschools in six cities countrywide as well. The objective of rating and ranking primary-secondary schools (and preschools) across a broad range of 14 parameters is to drive home the message to educators and parents that there’s more to education than academic achievement and excellence. We believe that teacher and parent communities need to be disabused of the notion that the purpose of K-12 education is academic attainment and success in board examinations. Therefore it’s a cause for satisfaction to us that over the past quinquennium since the Education-World India school ranking league tables were introduced, there is an emerging consensus that although academic performance in school-leaving board examinations is of critical importance because it determines admission into the country’s small minority of best undergraduate colleges, school managements, teachers and parents also need to focus on development activities such as sports and life-skills education, teacher development and community service, to produce well-rounded students equipped to succeed in higher education and workplaces beyond academic ivory towers. Yet even as we expect schools to strive to improve their rankings year on year by improving ratings on each parameter, on our part as well there is continuous effort to improve the rating and ranking methodology. Thus while in the first such…