ALMOST A DECADE AGO, ONE ANIL SHARMA, a general manager of this publication, resigned and started a rival magazine under the name and style of Education Today. Initially published as a print magazine in which school principals and leaders wrote their own encomiums, it currently bills itself as an education portal. However, its main business is publication of school rankings and presentation of awards to leaders in K-12 education. Yet it is plainly evident that the parameters under which schools are rated and awarded scores in Education Today are exactly similar to the parameters ideated by EducationWorld over 15 years ago. Likewise, the design and format of ET’s league tables have been blatantly plagiarised from this publication.
Similarly, the awards function at which schools highly ranked in ET surveys are presented certificates and trophies, is fashioned on our own. But this year, Sharma and ET have taken plagiarism to a new high. Its 2022-23 awards function was held on the same date (October 11) in the same city (Gurgaon), in a hostelry a few hundred metres down the road from Leela, Gurgaon where the EWISR 2022-23 awards conclave was being staged. Clearly the ET leadership’s calculus was that a substantial proportion of the 1,400 school leaders from across the country who throng the EducationWorld Awards conclave, would drop by to collect ET awards from next door.
On understanding that imitation is the best form of flattery, your editors have not initiated legal action for copyright violation and passing off against Sharma and ET. But one wonders about the ethics of not a few respected school principals who tacitly condone ET’s brazen plagiarisation by eagerly accepting the awards of this me-too enterprise. Presumably, they also turn a blind eye to their students indulging in shameless plagiarisation.
