India’s most respected schools

For the EW Most Respected Schools Survey 2008, perceptions of a new 2,026 SECA respondents base spread across 15 cities relating to Indias 250 most high-profile schools were solicited. Dilip Thakore reportsThe first league tables of Indias most respected primary-cum-secondary schools published by EducationWorld last year (August 2007) elicited much comment and provoked considerable controversy. The heads and students of some of the countrys most reputed schools such as the Shri Ram School, Delhi; Bombay Scottish and Cathedral & John Connon, Mumbai; Woodstock, Mussorie; Mallya Aditi, Bangalore; Mayo College, Ajmer; Rishi Valley, Chittoor and Welhams Girls, Dehradun, among others, were understandably outraged by the conspicuous omission of their schools in the league tables. Quite evidently the research and ranking methodology needed reappraisal and revision. With the benefit of hindsight, it is now clear that although last years sample of 908 carefully chosen respondents countrywide (apart from being perhaps small), was classified as SEC (socio-economic category) A/B, in fact, the respondents base was too heavily skewed by field researchers of the polling agency — IMRB International — in favour of respondents in SECB (lower middle class). This hypothesis is supported by the modest household income averaging Rs.16,255 per month of the respondents polled last year — too low to be reflective of the middle-middle and upward classes who constitute the core readership of EducationWorld. Therefore for the Indias Most Respected Schools Survey 2008 conducted for this publication by the Delhi-based market research and opinion polls agency C fore (Centre for forecasting and research) — which specialises in appraisal of educational and other institutions at the national level, and has been rating and ranking professional education institutes, including B-schools for the past nine years — these pitfalls have been avoided with C fore advising a 15-city perceptual polling exercise restricted to SECA respondents. “The distinguishing characteristic of the SECA respondents is that they are an uncompromisingly middle-middle, upper middle class sample group. Thus 90 percent of the new respondents base is made up of graduates and postgraduates with the chief wage earner of the household employed at middle or above managerial level as corporate manager or professional with the remaining 10 percent being entrepreneurs employing at least ten employees. This is a relatively high income sample group — Rs.30,000 per month household income — which tends to define education more broadly as a holistic experience, beyond mere academic achievement. Moreover parents who constitute 60 percent of the new respondents base are prepared to pay relatively high tuition fees to buy their children holistic, value-added education. This differentiated respondents base explains the sharp contrast in the league tables of 2007 and of this year, says Premchand Palety, the knowledgeable chief executive of C fore. A graduate of the Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, with an MBA and 15 years experience in market research, Palety promoted C fore in 2000. Currently C fore has a clients list which includes Hindustan Times, Times of India, Mint, Outlook, Reliance Telecom, Airtel and the Indian Oil Corporation, among…