Introduced in 2007, i.e, eight years after EducationWorld was launched on the eve of the new millennium, the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) which rank the country’s Top 1,000 primary-secondary schools divided into three main (day, boarding and international) and ten sub-categories (co-ed day, day-cum-boarding, all-boys and girls, wholly residential etc) to avoid apples and oranges type comparisons, has evolved into the world’s most comprehensive and detailed school rankings survey. The country’s Top 1,000 schools are not only ranked nationally, but also in the states, and most important for day schools, in their host cities.
That’s not all. Unlike league tables published in several Western countries which rank schools on the sole criterion of academic achievement, the annual EWISR ab initio has ranked India’s Top 1,000 schools on several parameters of school excellence including teacher welfare and development, academic reputation, teacher competence (given double weightage), leadership, infrastructure, life skills, co-curricular and sports education etc. The message implicit in the annual EWISR is that there’s more to schooling than academic excellence, and the best institutions develop the multiple intelligences of their students.
Moreover, unlike other media publications which constitute esoteric juries to evaluate and rank schools, the annual EWISR is the outcome of extensive field interviews with over 12,000 knowledgeable sample respondents (educationists, principals, teachers, fees-paying parents and latterly senior students) countrywide. Sample respondents in their regions (north, east, west, south) rate schools with which they are familiar on the several parameters of K-12 education excellence stated above. And the second message inherent in the annual EWISR is that principals, teachers, parents and students — all stakeholders — need to cooperate to ensure that their schools continuously advance on all parameters of school education excellence.
In EducationWorld, we genuinely appreciate the valuable service that progressive school managements provide to their students to nurture and develop them into future leaders in public life, industry and the professions. Therefore, we not only proclaim their national, state and civic rankings, but also award and felicitate top-ranked schools — including government, budget private and special needs schools — at our annual EWISR Awards Nite function which over the years has evolved into arguably the world’s largest celebratory event for educationists, promoters, principals and teachers.
Your editors are in full agreement with the late Nelson Mandela, that “education is the most powerful weapon for changing the world”. Therefore this year, the annual EWISR is going global. For the first time, we have commissioned special juries to rank the Top 10 schools of neighbour nations — the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The leaders of these schools will also be awarded and celebrated at our forthcoming EWISR Awards Nite (September 28-29) and provided opportunities to network with leaders of India’s top-ranked schools. We believe education can unite the world.
