Smooth induction of infants into the education system so they develop genuine love of learning, spirit of enquiry and problem solving capabilities is an issue of utmost importance which has not received the attention it deserves. In the latter half of the 20th century, it was normative practice to start drilling and skilling children to become literate and numerate as early as possible.
Fortunately in recent years, the education philosophies of early childhood care and education (ECCE) pioneers such as Rudolf Steiner, Jean Piaget, Dr. Maria Montessori and our own Gijubhai Badheka among others which posited that infants learn best through play, exploration and discovery, have acquired currency.
In EducationWorld, we like to believe this publication has played a major role in impacting the vital importance of professionally administered ECCE upon the academy, establishment and government. In 2010, we convened the first ever ECCE international seminar/conference in Mumbai. Simultaneously, we introduced the annual EducationWorld India Preschool Rankings which identified and felicitated the country’s best pre-primary schools. The socially beneficial outcome of persistent advocacy of professionally administered ECCE is that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 accords high prior[1]ity to early years education. It has reconfigured the 10+2 school education system into a 5+3+3+4 continuum by incorporating five years of compulsory ‘foundational education’ into the formal school system. This is a most welcome initiative that augurs well for the cognitive development of youngest children, provided care is taken to ensure that they are not pushed into early literacy.
Another issue that requires clear thinking and reflection is the status of budget private schools (BPS) in India’s K-12 education system. Within the establishment and academy dominated by Left ideologues, the popular per[1]ception is that BPS promoters and principals exploit fees-paying, lower middle and working class parents by promising to provide English and/or English[1]medium primary-secondary education to their children, but deliver precious little. That may be true, but if so how would they explain the multiplication of BPS countrywide to over 400,000 with an aggregate enrolment of 60 million (that’s not a typo) children? The plain truth is that standards of education in the country’s 1.20 million free-of-charge government schools are so poor, that a growing number of lower middle and working class households prefer fees levying BPS to free-of-charge government schools.
Therefore to enable parents to choose the most suitable BPS for their progeny and to stimulate affordable schools to improve, we have been rating and ranking them since 2015. In this issue we also unapologetically present league tables rating the country’s most reputed BPS on 11 parameters of school education excellence, ranking them nationally and in their host states and cities.
Totally unprecedented.
