EducationWorld India School Rankings 2014

To compile the EW India School Rankings 2014, 8,263 knowledgeable fees-paying parents, educationists, principals and teachers were interviewed in 25 cities by 203 field researchers of the Delhi-based C fore and asked to rate schools in ten discrete categories on 14 parameters of education excellence. That the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings published continuously in September for the past six years is the most eagerly awaited and received issue of EW, is an indicator of a strong reform and improvement current flowing within primary-secondary education countrywide. At this time of year, the EducationWorld head office in Bangalore as also our personnel across the country, are flooded with enquiries about this publications annual league tables of the countrys top day, legacy boarding and new genre international schools. This is a very positive development in Indian education because its also an indicator of growing awareness within the community of school promoters, principals, teachers, parents and students countrywide that continuous improvement and upgradation not only of teaching-learning standards but also across 13 other parameters of education excellence is crucial for institutional growth and development. Until the EducationWorld India School Rankings league tables were introduced in 2007, even the countrys most innovative and progressive primary-secondary schools were isolated institutions reputed only by subjective word-of-mouth opinions, unsupported by scientific research or objective data. Now parents looking for best school education options for their children have a basis for comparison, even as school managements receive valuable feedback relating to public perceptions of their institutions across a broad range of criteria which enables continuous improvement. Admittedly, although exhaustive and the outcome of several months of field research across the country, the annual EW league tables are indicative rather than authoritative, based as they are on public perception — albeit of an informed public comprising 8,263 SEC (socio-economic category) ‘A parents, educationists, principals and senior teachers. Therefore there is persistent demand from some parents and academics for publication of facts or hard data-based league tables, an impossibly time-consuming and expensive proposition. Nevertheless, in response to demands for infusing some objectivity into the EW India School Rankings league tables, last year with the help of Hyderabad-based Prashant Bhattacharji, an IT professional committed to upgrading school education who runs a portal (www.thelearningpoint.net), we published the results of 100 schools which topped the ISC (class XII) exam of the Delhi-based Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE). This year we have done several steps better. Not only are the actual class XII or class X (some CISCE affiliated schools dont offer higher secondary education) results of all CISCE schools sufficiently well-known to be included in the EW league tables featured, despite the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) having failed to respond to a notice served upon it under the Right to Information Act 2005, to furnish data relating to the class XII examinations performance of every school affiliated with it in 2013-14, we nevertheless accessed this data which is included in this years league tables. The publication of the…