Since the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings were launched in 2007, they have evolved into the world’s — yes, world’s largest — schools rankings survey. Yet instead of celebrating this Indian achievement, the general reaction is calculated indifference and resentment. Even though EW was launched way back in 1999, politicians and babus in Delhi and state capitals like to pretend it doesn’t exist. None of the several Union education ministers and secretaries within the ministry has responded to numerous requests for interview. Presumably because ab initio we have been consistently highlighting neglect of the country’s education system by the neta-babu brotherhood.
The indifference of mainstream media and India Inc is harder to decipher. Although we often cite and draw (with attribution) from popular dailies and magazines, very rarely is EducationWorld research cited in mainstream mass circulation publications. The high priests of the Times of India which reportedly earns a profit of Rs.10 crore per day, seem to believe that their business will collapse if the merest publicity is given to EducationWorld. That their business will grow if education becomes “the #1 item on the national agenda” is evidently beyond their logical capability.
A similar deficiency is perhaps behind India Inc’s stubborn indifference to EW. Industry leaders hate to remember that it was your editor’s vehement opposition (as founding-editor of India’s first two business magazines) that sowed the seeds of liberalisation of the Indian economy in 1991 after which they have prospered mightily. Nor do they seem aware that a well-educated and skilled workforce advocated by this publication offers the only chance of India Inc to be taken seriously in international markets. Evidently there’s no shortage of latter-day Mir Jaffars in the media and industry. So also in education. Not a few self-styled education leaders entertain hatred, ridicule and contempt for your editors. But we carry on regardless.
Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune also near sabotaged this year’s EWISR with the abrupt termination of a 17-year trust-based contract by our erstwhile rankings survey partner. The facts and circumstances of this divorce are well-known, and in the public domain. Further comment is proscribed as the matter is sub judice. Suffice it to say that it has proved a blessing in disguise as EWISR 2024-25 has been smoothly conducted by the Bangalore-based AZ Research Partners Pvt. Ltd (estb. 2002), a market research company with an impressive track record and equally impressive clients list in India and abroad. Drawing from a broader sample respondents database of SEC (socio-economic category) ‘A’ and ‘B’ as opposed to SEC ‘A’ hitherto, AZ Research has provided a rankings survey with a refreshing mix of traditionally top-ranked and new entrants in EWISR 2024-25.
We believe that EWISR 2024-25 presents a reliable roadmap for parents to shortlist, if not select, schools most suitable for the aptitudes and intelligences of their children. Good hunting!