Dilip Thakore & Summiya Yasmeen

In Part II of this year’s EWISR we present detailed national, state and parameter league tables of boarding schools (co-ed, boys and girls), international (day, day-cum-boarding and wholly residential), vintage legacy (boarding and international), government, special needs, philanthropy and budget private schools. Moreover, this year we have introduced a new Ivy League Schools category to rate consistenly highly ranked schools inter se

Last month your editors presented Part-I of the EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) 2025-26 rating and ranking India’s most admired Day — co-ed, day-cum-boarding, boys and girls — schools.

 Ab intio since the annual EWISR was introduced in 2007, our survey methodology has been to commission an independent market research firm — for eliminating editorial subjectivity — to compile a database of school education stakeholders (parents, teachers, educationists) and persuade them to award scores of 100-200 under 14 parameters of primary-secondary education excellence. Parameter scores are totaled to rank schools inter se in three main and 14 sub-categories to eliminate apples with oranges type comparisons and level the playing field for assessed schools. Self-evidently, day schools cannot be compared with boarding schools. Or well-endowed international schools with high-end infrastructure can’t be compared with private budget or free-of-charge government schools.

 Since then over the past almost two decades, the annual EWISR has had the impact of instilling institutional pride in schools — especially 450,000 private sector schools which mentor 48 percent of the country’s 260 million in-school children, and are the preferred choice of India’s large (432 million) middle class. This is a valuable public benefit because when school leaders, principals, and teachers strive to improve their ranking, the outcome is whole school improvement. Inevitably, given strong foundational K-12 education, a new generation of young citizens are setting new standards of leadership in politics, industry and the professions. This augurs well for the future.

To rate and rank India’s best schools countrywide, this year our survey partner, the Bangalore-based AZ Research Partners Pvt. Ltd,  expanded the number of sample respondents to 9,500 from 8,700 last year. These sample respondents rated 4,500 schools of all genres in 518 metros, Tier-I, II and III cities countrywide. This width and depth evolving over the past 18 years has transformed the annual EWISR from a tentative experimental schools rankings survey into the world’s largest and most comprehensive sui generis primary-secondary schools ranking survey. And driven by the same spirit of continuous improvement which is the purpose of the annual EWISR, we are also continuously learning and improving. 

“For the past two years since we were commissioned to conduct the EWISR survey, we have chosen the quality over quantity option. Under this strategy we have reduced the number of interviewees from previous years. Instead we have improved the quality of interaction with sample respondents responding to a fully structured questionnaire with responses registered online. We have also eliminated group and cluster interviews directing our research personnel to conduct one-on-one face-to-face, telephone and/or online interviews. This has contributed to greater accuracy and authenticity of the interviewer-respondent interaction. Interviews were conducted with 9,500 knowledgeable respondents in 34 cities across 22 states,” says Shubhra Mishra, Founder-Director of AZ Research Partners. An alumna of IIM-Lucknow, Mishra acquired a decade’s experience in market research (MARG, MARG-ORG) and in the corporate sector (Titan, Tata Tea and Blackstone Synovate) before she co-promoted AZ Research Partners in 2002.

Moreover in response to feedback that some excellent, well-managed schools were dominating EWISR league tables year after and clouding them with déjà vu sentiment, following the advice of Raymond Ravaglia, Director of Launchpad LLC, a US-based education research company that rated and ranked America’s Best Universities for undergrad education earlier this year together with EW (see https://educationworld.in/rankings-americas-best-universities-2025/), we have promoted several schools with consistently high rank and excellent scores under several critical parameters into a new  Ivy League Schools category for Day, Day-cum-Boarding, Residential and International schools. Unlike aggregated scores in other categories, the small number of repeatedly high scoring primary-secondaries have been elevated to a separate and distinct super nova Ivy League category and all ranked #1. They are awarded rating stars (1-5) and grade points to minimally differentiate them inter se.

Although within EW we take great pains to invest time, money and human resources to ensure that the annual EWISR presents a fair and accurate picture of the relative competitiveness of best schools in their distinctive categories, some commentators and stakeholders — especially those of woke liberal ideology — question the role and purpose of rating and ranking education institutions and introducing unseemly competitiveness. This according to members of this politically correct tribe generates an aura of commercialisation in this annual exercise, and EW might turn a profit — a dirty word in the woke lexicon — on it.

Mishra: greater accuracy & authenticity

However Sumer Singh, the highly-experienced former principal of the top-ranked Lawrence School, Sanawar and Daly College, Indore and currently a busy Punjab-based education consultant, declines to be numbered among the woke. “Schools ranking surveys conducted and published by high credibility publications, especially EducationWorld, serve a very useful purpose. First, they stimulate school managements to focus on areas — parameters — under which they are awarded unsatisfactory scores. This has had the beneficial outcome of schools improving across parameters which is reassuring for parents. Also for alumni, donors and supporters. Secondly, high ranked schools attract the brightest students and best teachers. This ensures continuously improved learning outcomes. All this is very much in the national interest,” says Singh

In the September Part I issue, we presented city, state, national and parameter league tables of Day schools (Ivy League, co-ed day, boys, girls and day-cum-boarding) and Vintage Legacy Day schools (over 90 years vintage).

In this month’s Part II issue we present league tables rating and ranking Boarding Ivy League, Boarding (co-ed, boys and girls), International Ivy League, International (day, day-cum-boarding and wholly residential) and vintage legacy schools. Also included are top Central and state government schools, special needs, philanthropy and Super 40 budget private schools league tables. Our aspiration is to generate a tide that lifts all boats.