Since it was somewhat hesitantly and experimentally introduced in 2007, the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) survey, which rates and ranks 3,500- 4,000 of India’s best schools, has evolved into the largest and most detailed schools ranking survey worldwide. However it arouses mixed emotions in diverse publics. Left intellectuals who curiously continue to dominate the academy despite the rejection of communist/ socialist ideology in Russia and China — the fons et origo of this obsolete creed — have contempt for it. It’s a commercial venture, the evaluation methodology is flawed, it provokes unseemly competition et al.
But bona fide school promoters, principals and teachers love this annual survey because it provides feedback on ways and means to upgrade and improve institutional performance across a broad range of parameters of school education excellence. Parents also look forward to the annual EWISR because it enables them to shortlist, even if not select, primary-secondary schools most likely to develop the unique intelligences of their children. That’s why every year there is a clamour from schools countrywide for inclusion in our survey. In 2007 a mere 250 schools were sufficiently well-known to sample respondents to include in the survey. In the latest EWISR 2022- 23, the number of schools included in our league tables has risen to 4,000 from 392 cities and towns across the country.
The field interviews-based institutional evaluation methodology adopted by us is elaborate, and expensive. Every summer over a period of four months, field researchers of the Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd, aka C fore, Delhi, a highly-reputed specialised market research and opinion polls company, persuade over 14,000 carefully chosen, knowledgeable sample respondents (educationists, fees-paying parents, principals, teachers and senior students) to rate the country’s most reputed schools on a scale of 1-100 on 12-15 parameters of school education excellence. Subsequently, the parameter scores are totaled to rank schools in 22 segregated categories. We believe that segregating schools for assessment and ranking is important to provide level playing fields and eliminate apples and oranges type comparisons.
Last month we published detailed league tables spread over 344 pages rating and ranking the country’s most-reputed Day Schools (co-ed, day-cum-boarding, girls, boys) nationally and in the country’s 29 states and seven Union territories. In this issue we present EWISR 2022-23 Part II rating and ranking Boarding (co-ed, boys and girls) and International (day, day-cumboarding and residential) schools. Moreover league tables evaluating the country’s best Vintage legacy, Central and State government (day and boarding); Special Needs and Philanthropy schools are also featured.
There’s something in these league tables for everyone — parents, educators, students and social scientists.