EducationWorld November 2020

To compile the 2020-21 league table of dedicated special needs schools, C fore field personnel interviewed 485 parents of children with disabilities and special needs educators in six cities. They were asked to rate dedicated schools on ten parameters of education excellence According to Unesco’s State of the Education Report for India 2019 — Children with Disabilites — India grudgingly hosts 7.8 million children with disability — a gross under-estimate. The Mumbai-based Adapt (formerly Spastics Society of India) estimates the number of children with special needs (CWSN) at 20 million. Be that as it may, informed opinion is unanimous that the country’s large number of CWSN have been chronically short-changed by the education system. This despite educators consistently unanimous that with minimal additional facilities and attention, special needs children can be transformed into highly educated and productive citizens. A prime example of an individual with disability who was nurtured and enabled to transform into a distinguished theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and professor of mathematics at Cambridge University (UK) is Dr. Stephen Hawking (1942-2018). Dr. Hawking was enabled by UK’s supportive education ecosystem to make huge contributions to advancement of theoretical physics and space science. Unfortunately, although post-independence India has also produced distinguished scholars and scientists with severe disabilities, they have succeeded despite unsupportive environments, not because of them. However, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, proclaimed in end-July, acknowledges the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, and its provisions for inclusive education. It endorses non-discrimination in schools, accessible infrastructure, reasonable accommodation, individualised support, use of Braille and Indian Sign language in teaching. The policy document mandates recruitment of special educators with cross-disability training and incorporates disabilities awareness within teacher education. en advocating inclusive education and enabling environments for CWSN ab initio. For instance, way back in 2011, special needs education was selected as one of 14 parameters for rating and ranking India’s Top 1,000 schools in the pioneer annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR). “Schools that don’t provide enabling facilities for CWSN are penalised in EWISR,” says Premchand Palety, promoter-CEO of Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore) which conducts field surveys to provide the perceptual data for the annual EWISR which over the past decade, has evolved into the world’s most detailed and largest primary-secondary schools survey. Moreover since 2015, the country’s schools dedicated to educating severely challenged children have been ranked separately. To compile the 2020-21 league table of India’s Top 25 dedicated special needs schools, C fore field researchers interviewed 485 parents of CWSN and special needs educators in six cities. They were asked to rate and rank special schools on ten parameters of education excellence — teacher welfare and development, competence of faculty, quality of program, rehabilitation, co-curricular education, individual attention to students, leadership/management quality, safety and hygiene, infrastructure provision and value for money. This year, The Aditya Birla Integrated School, Mumbai (TABIS, estb.2014) promoted by philanthropist Neerja Birla, which was ranked #3 last year, has been voted the country’s #1 special needs…

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Although the best among the Central government’s 636 JNVs dominate the government boarding schools league table, some state governments have replicated the Centre’s JNVs initiative to establish excellent boarding schools – Paromita Sengupta Although the country’s 1.20 million government schools defined by crumbling buildings, primitive infrastructure, AWOL (absent without official leave) teachers and abysmal learning outcomes, are the Achilles heel hobbling post-independence India’s national development effort, the Central government is less blameworthy than the country’s 29 state governments because over the past seven decades, it has promoted 1,232 Kendriya Vidyalaya day schools for the schooling of its 4 million employees. It’s commonly accepted that teaching-learning standards and learning outcomes in KVs — for which substantial provision is made in the Union Budget (Rs.5,516 crore in 2020-21) — are on a par with top-ranked private schools. Another laudable initiative of the Centre was the promotion of the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya schools in Jhajjar and Amravati in 1985-86 — according to some historians the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s most enduring legacy. These are free-of-charge co-ed CBSE-affiliated class VI-XII boarding schools for meritorious rural children selected through a rigorous entrance exam. Since then, the number of JNVs — primary-secondaries modeled after the country’s best boarding schools — has risen to 636. Generously funded (Union budget provision: Rs.3,300 crore in 2020-21), the learning outcomes of the well-equipped JNVs are on a par with India’s top ranked day and boarding private schools. Unsurprisingly, they dominate the EWISR league table of government boarding schools.  In the EWISR 2020-21, JNV, Chennithala, Alappuzha (Kerala) which had slipped to #3 last year has regained its top rank of 2017-18 with highest scores under seven of the 14 parameters of primary-secondary education excellence, and a 90.12 percent average in the CBSE class XII school-leaving exams of March this year. Motilal Nehru School of Sports, Sonipat, which has been moved this year from the category of co-ed boarding to government boarding schools, is ranked #2. Further down the 16-strong league table of government boarding schools are 10 JNVs (Bagalur, Bengaluru Urban #3, Gachibowli #6, Kannur #7, Hamirpur #8, Ernakulam #9, Samastipur #10, Karim Nagar #11, Chittoor #12, Pathanamthitta #13, Pimpale, Pune #14). Moreover, Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya, Patharchepa, Balangir, promoted under the aegis of the Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya Sangathan, a publicly funded initiative launched in 2015 by the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government of Odisha, has made an impressive #5 debut in the government boarding schools league table.  “We are delighted that we have regained our #1 ranking and thank your knowledgeable sample respondents for recognising the dedicated service of my teachers, non-teaching and support staff and the hard work, sincerity and commitment of our students. This is the outcome of our focus on discipline, spirit of competition and cooperation among our students who over the past quarter century have earned the reputation of being socially useful, productive and enlightened global citizens distinguishing themselves in the civil service, business and industry,” says Razia Beebi T.A, a science alumna of Kerala and…

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In EWISR 2020-21, the two-year reign of the Delhi state government’s Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya, Sector 10, Dwarka, which sensationally ended the dominance of Central government-run Kendriya Vidyalayas, has ended – Paromita Sengupta The Covid-19 outbreak and isolation which has forced closure of 1.4 million anganwadis (government-run child nutrition and early childhood education centres), 60,000 private pre-primaries, 1.5 million K-12 schools, 41,907 colleges and 1,028 universities since mid-March, has given a new lease of life to India’s floundering 1.20 million government schools. The vast majority of them — except for the Central government- funded 1,232 Kendriya Vidyalayas and 636 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas — are negligently managed by state and local governments. But with an estimated 11 million employees and workers suffering loss of jobs and income following closure of public transport, businesses and MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises), and household budgets stretched tight, free-of-charge government schools and heavily subsidised Kendriya Vidyalayas have become the only options for working and lower class households, which hitherto have been voting with their wallets and enrolling their progeny in affordable private budget schools whose number is estimated at 450,000 countrywide. Therefore choosing the best government school has become an important priority for a large number of households countrywide. This year to rate and rank India’s most respected government schools on 14 parameters of school education excellence, field representatives of our partner agency C fore interviewed 1,046 SEC (socio-economic category) ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ respondents across the country. The perceptual scores awarded by respondents under the 14 parameters were totaled to rank best government schools. In the EWISR 2020-21, the two-year reign of the Delhi state government’s Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya (RPVV), Sector 10, Dwarka, Delhi, which sensationally ended the long run of the Central Kendriya Vidyalayas last year sparking wild jubilation in the Delhi state government, has ended. Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV), Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala), ranked #1 in 2016-17 but #4, in the next two years, is voted #1 again with top scores under seven parameters of education excellence. Within the Top 5, RPVV, Sector 10, Dwarka, Delhi has been pushed down to #2 followed by Kendriya Vidyalaya-IIT Madras, Chennai (#2 in 2019-20) jointly ranked with the Kerala state government’s celebrated Government Vocational Higher Secondary School for Girls, Nadakkavu, Kozhikode at #3. The previously unranked Worli Seaface Mumbai Public English School has debuted at #4 and is co-ranked with KV-IIT Bombay. RPVV, Sector 11, Rohini is promoted to #5 jointly with the Odisha government’s Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya, Hatiota. Evidently some state schools are beginning to challenge KV dominance in the government day schools category. “During the previous two years following our slipping to #4 rank, we drew up a comprehensive plan to identify our flaws and address and improve our perceived weak areas. We are especially pleased that KV-Pattom is awarded the highest score under the parameter of curriculum & pedagogy (digital readiness). Since March, our teachers have successfully conducted real-time online classes through digital platforms such as Google Meet, Zoom. Continuous improvement under…

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The seven-year reign of Campion School, Mumbai in the all-boys category has ended. This year the 11,368 sample respondents have voted St. John’s High School, Chandigarh #1 by a three points margin One of the few success stories of post-independence India is gender egalitarianism — at least within the 200 million-strong great Indian middle class. Although gender parity is not yet normative in Indian society, except perhaps in the top 5 percent of upper middle class homes, there’s rising awareness within the population of the need to provide equal pre-primary and K-12 education to girl children. Therefore, gender segregated — all-boys and all-girls – primary-secondaries are a dying species, especially single sex day schools. Consequently, the number of sufficiently well-reputed gender segregated schools (schools unknown to less than 25 sample respondents are not ranked) is diminishing with every passing year. It’s a sign of an increasingly progressive mindset that new greenfield schools of all categories tend to be co-educational institutions which promote gender egalitarianism and respect. Against this backdrop, the seven-year reign of Campion School, Mumbai (estb.1943) in the category of all-boys day schools has ended. This year, the 11,368 sample respondents comprising parents, teachers, principals and senior students of the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2020-21, have voted St. John’s High School, Chandigarh (SJHS, estb.1959) #1 by a three points margin. It’s pertinent to note that Campion’s dislodgement from its normative top of table coincides with the retirement of its long-serving (2013-19) and high-profile principal Paul Machado. Promoted in 1959 by the Congregation of Christian Brothers on a 30-acre campus in the heart of Chandigarh, SJHS is #1 this year with top scores on the parameters of faculty competence, infrastructure provision, leadership/management quality and value for money (tuition fee: Rs.3,000-4,000 per month). “We are thrilled by this good news during these sad pandemic times. For several years, our dedicated teachers have been working hard to improve under all EWISR parameters of school education excellence. As indicated by our top score under the parameter of teacher welfare and development, we value our teachers very highly. Though we have suffered loss of revenue due to the pandemic induced closure of all schools, we have continued to pay full salaries to all our teachers besides providing them continuous professional training to become familiar with new online learning technologies. Therefore, we are happy that SJHS has been awarded excellent scores under the parameters of faculty competence, co-curricular education and value for money,” says Kavita Das, an alumna of Delhi University with over 20 years of teaching experience (St. Columba’s, Delhi) who was appointed principal of St. John’s High in 2007. Currently, the school has an aggregate enrolment of 2,000 boys mentored by 100 teachers. In this year’s league table of India’s Top 5 boys day schools, Campion School at #2 is followed by The Bishop’s School, Pune which has risen high in public esteem to #3 (#6 in 2019-20). It is jointly ranked #3 with St. Mary’s School, Mazgaon, Mumbai (4) which has traded…

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This year’s 11,368 sample respondents have voted Carmel Convent, Chandigarh India’s premier girls day school with top scores under the parameters of co-curricular education, infrastructure, value for money and community service The 2020-21 league table of India’s top-ranked girls day schools has experienced a sweeping makeover. The vintage JB Petit High School for Girls, Mumbai (JBPHS, estb.1865), which was ranked India’s #1 girls school for the past four years, has yielded top rank, trading places with the consistently second ranked Carmel Convent Girls School, Chandigarh (CCGS, estb.1959). This year’s 11,368 sample respondents comprising parents, teachers, principals and senior school students have voted CCGS India’s premier girls day school with top scores under the parameters of co-curricular education, individual attention to students, infrastructure provision, value for money and community service. “The credit for CCGS’ overdue promotion should be given to our 75 highly qualified and committed teachers who have created stress-free learning environments, enabling the holistic development of our girls. Over the past six months in particular with schools shut because of the Covid-19 pandemic, our teachers have made extraordinary efforts to ensure delivery of online learning to all our 2,039 girls. Therefore, I am happy that your survey respondents have rated our teachers highly. We will continue to strive to retain our top ranking in the future,” says Sr. Mary Supreeta A.C, principal of the CBSE-affiliated Carmel Convent Girls School, Chandigarh. With CCGS and JBPHS trading places, there is minor readjustment of seating at the Top 5 table. The top two are followed by Modern High for Girls, Kolkata ranked #3 (#4 in 2019-20) jointly with Rajmata Krishna Kumari Girls’ Public School, Jodhpur, which retains its last year’s ranking. La Martiniere for Girls, Kolkata has slipped to #4 (2) even as La Martiniere Girls College, Lucknow has risen in public esteem to be ranked #5 (10) jointly with Loreto House, Middleton, Kolkata which has retained its last year’s #5 ranking.  Dr. Aashrita Dass, principal of La Martiniere Girls College, Lucknow (LMGC) is upbeat this CISCE-affiliated K-12 school has been promoted to the national Top 5 table and is ranked #1 in Uttar Pradesh (pop.215 million). “We are humbled by our huge promotion and thank your knowledgeable sample respondents for recognising the hard work of our teachers and students. Last year, LMGC celebrated its 150th anniversary with a series of high profile events and competitions. I am happy that your sample respondents have acknowledged our long service record of over a century in the cause of women’s education and emancipation. I am especially pleased that our school has been awarded top score for academic reputation, because our students have consistently produced excellent results in board exams. This year, the ICSE class averaged 91 percent,” says Dass, an alumna of Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow and Faizabad University who has been associated with LMGC for the past 30 years, first as student and then as a teacher. Further down the top table, St. Mary’s School, Pune, at #6 and Sacred Heart Sr. Sec…

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The country’s steadily multiplying older day-cum-boarding schools are being given stiff competition by newly promoted capital intensive globally benchmarked institutions which offer children in the country’s fast growing cities day and boarding options at attractive price points.     When day schools acquire good reputation for providing excellent education or boarding schools in fast-growth tier-II and tier-III towns experience strong pressure from the local population for admission, they transform into day-cum-boarding schools. This genre of primary-secondary schools provides access to children from remote, under-served parts of every state to high quality school education. Conversely as tier-II and tier-III cities and towns grew and expanded into populous administrative capitals of state governments, boarding schools experienced heavy pressure to admit day scholars and transform into day-cum-boarding schools.    The Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram, Delhi, is a prime example of an essentially day school transformed into a day-cum-boarding school, and Bishop Cotton Boys School (BCBS), Bengaluru, of a quintessential boarding school (estb.1865) gradually transforming into a day-cum-boarding institution and subsequently into an overwhelmingly day school. Although BCBS continues to admit boarders, their number is disproportionately small and for the past decade, this school is ranked in the category of boys day schools in the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR).   Another feature of the country’s steadily multiplying day-cum-boarding schools is that older, established schools in this category are being given stiff competition by newly-promoted, capital-intensive, globally-benchmarked institutions with excellent infrastructure, contemporary ICT (information communication technologies)-enabled pedagogies and state-of-the-art co-curricular and sports facilities. Thus they offer children of the rising middle class in the country’s fast-growing cities the best of both worlds — day and boarding options — at attractive price points.   Against this backdrop, with latter-day day-cum-boarding schools continuously innovating and upgrading, and also offering daily and weekly boarding options, it’s unsurprising this is one of the most competitive categories of the annual EW India School Rankings survey. Therefore this year, there is a major rearrangement in the seating order at the Top 10 table.   The consistently high ranked DPS, R.K. Puram, Delhi (DPS-RKP) which was unseated from its prime #1 position of 2016-17 and 2017-18 position by Modern School, Barakhamba (Delhi) last year, is back at #1 with the latter ranked #3 by this year’s sample respondents. However this year, DPS-RKP (estb.1972) is obliged to share its #1 ranking with a surprising outlier — the new genre SAI International, Bhubaneswar (SAII, estb.2008).   Although the CBSE-affiliated SAII is by all metrics a comprehensively contemporary, capital-intensive school, its location in non-metro Bhubaneswar weighs against it. Quite obviously, this hardly two-decades-old school has won an excellent reputation in eastern India where sample respondents have awarded it top score under the parameter of academic reputation, and high scores for co-curricular and ports education, leadership and parental involvement, enabling it to become the first non-metro school to top the annual EWISR (estb.2007) in this category.   “The top rank awarded to SAII in EWISR 2019-20 is a dream-come-true and proof of our…

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That the largest league table in the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) is always of co-ed day schools is socially positive testimony that despite the daily horror stories of sexual violence visited upon women and girl citizens, Indian society is determinedly moving forward towards the constitutional goal of gender parity. This year the co-ed day schools league table, which rates 1,700 primary-secondaries on 14 parameters of school education excellence, is the lengthiest since the annual EWISR was introduced way back in 2007. Although over the years EWISR has evolved into the world’s largest and most detailed schools assessment and evaluation project, it’s pertinent to note that all told, a mere 2,300 of the country’s 1.5 million sufficiently well-known schools of good repute are included in annual EW league tables. Against this backdrop, this year there’s been a minor rearrangement of seating at the Top 5 table of the country’s most admired co-ed day schools. The Top 5 actually comprise nine schools because of several tied total scores and a new outlier, viz, Vidyashilp Academy, Bengaluru (aka Bangalore) which has ascended in the esteem of this year’s sample respondents who have promoted it to #4 from #9 last year. However at the head of top table, there is no change. The highly-acclaimed Heritage Xperiential Learning School, Gurugram/Gurgaon (HXLS) has retained its #1 ranking, albeit by a razor-thin margin ahead of the venerable Vasant Valley School, Delhi and Step by Step, Noida, jointly ranked #2. Inventure Academy, Bengaluru retains its 2019-20 #3 rank and is tied with The Shri Ram School, Vasant Vihar/Moulsari, also ranked #3. The remaining seats at the rather crowded Top 5 table of co-ed day schools 2020-21 are filled with Vidyashilp Academy and the Valley School both in Bengaluru tied at #4 and Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania, Thane (Mumbai) and Mallya Aditi, Bengaluru tied at #5. “We are absolutely delighted and honoured to learn that HXLS has retained its top ranking this year. I am grateful to our teachers, parents and students who always do us proud. During the past 15 years, our team at HXLS has worked tirelessly to re-imagine education and make it relevant for the times we live in. At the start of our transformational journey almost two decades ago, our unfamiliar pedagogy was questioned by several eminent educationists. Looking back I am glad we stuck to our guns and convictions to defy convention to develop a unique experiential learning school, though I’m conscious that we still have a long way to go. Yet the major lesson that we have learnt is to never stop learning. We remain focused on continuously improving and contemporising our pedagogy and programmes to ensure that every child in our school gets an education that empowers her to live a fulfilling and meaningful life,” says Manit Jain, an alumnus of the blue chip Harvard School of Education, USA and promoter-director of HXLS (estb.2003). Currently this new genre co-ed day school which especially values its top score under the parameter of…

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Disruption of the academic calendar by the global Covid-19 pandemic necessitated deferment of the much-awaited EducationWorld India School Rankings 2020-21 to November. Nevertheless this year’s EWISR — for which 11,368 sample respondents were interviewed in 28 cities — is as robust and uncompromising as previous C fore-EW surveys – Dilip Thakore & Summiya Yasmeen The malignant wind of the Coronavirus global pandemic which has infected 50 million people and killed 1.26 million people around the world including 8.5 million and 127,000 in India (Nov.9) has blown a modicum of good. It has forced postponement of our anxiously awaited annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) league tables, published in September for the past 13 years, to November/December. With the number of schools sufficiently well-known to be included rising to almost 2,500, this year EWISR 2020-21 will be spread over our November and December issues. Please note that for the past decade, EWISR has established an unchallenged reputation as the world’s largest and most detailed primary-secondary schools annual rankings project. To the extent, that demand for inclusion has also emanated from self-respecting schools in neighbouring Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, UAE and Nepal. Therefore for the past two years, we have been publishing expert jury rankings of Top 10 schools in neighbouring countries. This year too, the most respected schools in these countries are ranked by specially constituted juries of education experts with deep knowledge of their K-12 education systems.  The silver lining of the pandemic crisis is that disruption of our EWISR calendar has pushed publication of the rankings to November when EducationWorld attains the full maturity age of 21. On November 1, 1999 the very first issue of EW featuring a cover story on IIM-Calcutta hit the newsstands. Since then, this publication launched with the mission statement to “build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda,” has been the reform torch-bearer of Indian education with a record of uninterrupted publication of 252 issues over 21 years. Unfortunately our best and sustained effort of 21 years, has failed to attain our mission. Nevertheless, it’s some consolation that education, i.e, “diffusion and sharing of knowledge — the public good par excellence” – according to best-seller French economist Thomas Piketty (Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014)), has moved from outer periphery to the near centre of public discourse, if not to the top of the national development agenda. In EducationWorld, we believe that as the country’s pioneer education news magazine with a national readership estimated at over 1 million, we have played a substantial role in raising awareness about the critical importance of developing India’s abundant, high-potential human resource. Be that as it may, this year because of disruption of the academic calendar, business and industry by the Covid global pandemic, the 14th edition of our most successful initiative — the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings 2020-21 is presented in our 21st anniversary issue. Although the pandemic necessitated postponement of EWISR 2020-21, Premchand Palety, promoter-director of the…

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