Consequent upon inclusion of schools promoted by defence services in the Central government day and boarding schools league tables, JNVs, which had hitherto dominated this league table, have had to cede rank, writes Paromita Sengupta and Reshma Ravishanker
SAV-J girl students
Since 2014, when EducationWorld editors took the decision to rank government schools — routinely ignored by the media and public — in the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) survey, the league table of India’s best government boarding schools has been dominated by the Central government-promoted Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs).
Conceptualised in 1984 by the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi as freeof-charge class VI-XII co-ed boarding schools for meritorious rural children, the country’s 661 JNVs are arguably the greatest success story in public education. Unfortunately there are too few of them. India has 731 districts but only 661 JNVs.
However this year, consequent upon inclusion of schools promoted by the defence services in the Central government schools day and boarding schools league tables, JNVs have had to cede considerable ground. The 1,279 SEC (socio-economic category) ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ sample respondents interviewed by field personnel of the Delhi-based Centre for Forecasting and Research have voted Rashtriya Indian Military College, Dehradun (RIMC-D, estb.1922) — ranked India #10 in the boys residential school category in 2021-22 — the country’s #1 government boarding school.
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