Thank you for apprising us of your decision to rank Step by Step #2 among the top preschools of Delhi. We respect your process of evaluation and humbly suggest if people from your organisation could personally visit our school to get a sense of all that is being done. We are constantly attempting to raise the bar by introducing new methodologies which are child-friendly and relevant. Step by Step also takes great pride in organising interactive programmes with our parents where we work together as a team and family. But as I have already conveyed to you, it is not fair to assess preschools and their teachers’ competence in the absence of relevant information. We are neither competent to make such an evaluation nor would it be a fair and unbiased judgement. Ramani Chopra Principal, Step by Step Nursery School, New Delhi The EW India Preschool Rankings methodology is exhaustively explained on pgs 37-38 of our cover story narrative. It’s financially and logistically impossible for us to visit every preschool countrywide — Editor Inappropriate curriculums Congratulations for publishing the extensive and detailed EW India Preschool Rankings across 16 cities (EW December). This is a valuable service provided to parents of young children as there is no reliable information on preschools. In fact, there are so many preschools mushrooming across the country that it’s very difficult to tell the good ones from the bad. Your rankings give parents credible information about the best nursery schools in major cities. I also believe it’s a good idea for state governments to issue a list of approved preschools in major cities and provide curriculum guidelines to be followed by private preschools. As a young parent, while doing a recce for my daughter, I noticed that many preschools follow age-inappropriate and child-unfriendly curriculums. They are like full-fledged primary schools forcing children to learn the three R’s and even write term end exams. This is thoroughly unprofessional and can make children learning-averse in their early years. Suman Mishra Delhi Words of praise Thanks for the excellent 18th Anniversary issue of EducationWorld. I eagerly wait to get the latest copy of this magazine. Reading EW is always a wonderful experience. Dr. Shayama Chona New Delhi Upgrade Indian Railways Thank you for your 18 years of service to Indian education. Re your editorial ‘Indian Railways need radical reforms’ (EW November), I agree with you that our trains need urgent upgradation. Though the introduction of high-speed bullet trains is welcome, existing trains need to be modernised first. Indian Railways trains are dirty as are the railway stations, notwithstanding the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan programme. Mahesh Kapasi Delhi Wrong categorisation Re the EW India School Rankings 2017-18 published in your September issue, parents have a lot of faith in your evaluation process and the credibility of the rankings. However, it has come to my notice that you have ranked Asian School (Dehradun), Taurian School (Ranchi), The Aryan School (Dehradun), Shree Vidya Niketan International School (Tirupati), Usha Martin…
