Last month (September) in Part I of EWISR 2024-25, we featured league tables rating and ranking over 3,000 day schools. In this issue we present national, state and parameter league tables of boarding schools (co-ed, boys and girls), international (day, day-cum-boarding and wholly residential), vintage legacy, government, special needs, philanthropy and budget private schools.

Until 2007 when EducationWorld (estb. 1999) ideated and published the first-ever EducationWorld India School Rankings of the Indian subcontinent, there was little information in the public domain about the country’s best schools.

Even excellent vintage schools such as Lawrence Sanawar and Lovedale, The Doon School, Bishop Cotton (Shimla and Bengaluru), Welham Boys (Dehradun), Woodstock (Mussoorie) and Kodaikanal International, among others established during the heyday of the British Raj, were selected for children of the well-to-do on the basis of word-of-mouth information and/or legacy considerations, i.e, their parents were alumni. Little hard information was available to compare and contrast the relative merits of the country’s best schools. As for the vast majority of day schools, their reputations were restricted to the cities and towns in which they were sited.

Therefore one of the first major initiatives of EducationWorld (EW), promoted 25 years ago, was to launch the EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) to enable parents to assess the relative merits of schools in their cities and beyond, on carefully ideated parameters of primary-secondary education excellence. This would enable them to shortlist, even if not select, schools best aligned with the aptitudes and special intelligences of their children.

Since then, the annual EWISR presented to the public uninterruptedly for the past 17 years, has been continuously refined and has evolved into the world’s — yes, the world’s — largest and most comprehensive schools ranking survey. This year’s EWISR rates over 4,000 schools under three major heads — day, boarding, and international — and 14 sub-categories (to eliminate apples and oranges-type comparisons) in 458 cities and towns across India, a globally unprecedented initiative.

This process of rating and ranking the country’s most admired primary-secondary schools culminates in an EWISR Awards event staged in Delhi NCR at which top-ranked schools in every sub-category in 458 cities, 28 states and nationally, are felicitated and awarded trophies and certificates.

The process is onerous and expensive. Nevertheless, we have persisted with it for almost two decades, come rain or shine. That’s because in EducationWorld, we truly value all education institutions, especially the country’s 1.6 million schools.

All over the country, principals, teachers, parents and students are trying, often in the face of overwhelming odds, to light the lamp of knowledge and learning which in our opinion, is the non-negotiable pre-condition of national development and advancement. It’s a matter of deep regret that successive governments and members of the establishment have not grasped this truism. That’s why the annual national (Centre plus states) outlay for public education has remained mired in the 3.5 percent of GDP rut as against the 6 percent mandated by the Kothari Commission way back in 1967.

The consequence of foolish neglect of public education is that 52 percent of children enrolled in government schools — the remaining 48 percent are in private schools which offer relatively superior education — are obliged to learn best as they can in institutions housed in decrepit buildings bereft of libraries, laboratories and lavatories and suffer chronic teacher absenteeism and rock-bottom learning outcomes. This monumental myopia has transformed high-potential post-independence India into one of the world’s poorest and most wretched countries.

Therefore, the prime objective of promoting EducationWorld, launched on the eve of the new millennium, was to awaken official and public opinion that this situation cannot endure, and going forward, universal, high-quality education — especially K-12 education — must become the #1 item on the national development agenda.

Looking back, although universal high quality school education has not become the national priority, it has certainly moved higher up on the country’s development agenda. Certainly there is new palpable awareness within the educators’ community and society that schooling the country’s children needs to be given high attention. And since the annual EWISR was introduced in 2007, schools in every category, sub-category, town and city countrywide, have begun to compete to improve scores awarded under all 14 parameters of school education excellence which when added up determine national, state and city rankings.

Unsurprisingly, the runaway success of EducationWorld and the annual EWISR has prompted several pretender publications to plagiarise our design, architecture and methodology. Unable and/or unqualified to match the intellectual content of EW, several self-styled education magazines are publishing pale imitations of the annual EWISR. Although we are not overly concerned (imitation being the best form of flattery), the equivalence accorded by leaders of a surprising number of top-ranked schools to imitative cut-and-paste pretender magazines is a matter of considerable disappointment.

Be that as it may, EWISR 2024-25 is a watershed survey inasmuch as it marks the end of a 17-year-old association between EducationWorld and the Gurgaon-based Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore), a market research agency which had hitherto conducted field research for the annual EWISR. The facts and circumstances which led to the abrupt termination of the long-standing relationship by C fore are in the public domain and sub judice.

In retrospect, this messy divorce and subsequent legal tangles have proved a blessing in disguise. It has resulted in a new partnership contracted with AZ Research Partners Pvt. Ltd (AZR, estb.2002), a Bengaluru-based market research company which over the past two decades has established an excellent reputation for rigorous market research. Among AZR’s corporate clients: Mars Global, Wipro FMCG, IndusInd Bank, Abbott Pharmaceuticals, Polycab and Nova IVF.

“In departure from past practice, for EWISR 2024-25 we have deliberately chosen a smaller but adequate number of 8,700 respondents comprising 5,150 parents of school-going children and 3,550 educationists, teachers and education counsellors in 22 states countrywide and interviewed them one-on-one, i.e, face-to-face or telephonically. Thus we have eliminated cluster, group and written interviews sacrificing quantity for quality and depth. Moreover, our parents’ sample includes SEC (socio-economic category) ‘A’ and ‘B’ households to make the survey more broad-based. Schools are ranked nationally, in their host states and city-wise. I believe EWISR 2024-25 provides parents and students a reliable and accurate overview of the relative merits of India’s top 4,000-4,500 primary-secondary schools,” says Shubra Mishra, Promoter-Director of AZ Research Partners whose field research personnel conducted the survey over three months (May-July).

An alumna of IIM-Lucknow with wide experience of market research (MARG, MARG-ORG) and the corporate sector (Titan, Tata Tea and Blackstone Synovate), Mishra’s acceptance of our offer of partnership for conducting field research for EWISR has invested the world’s largest schools ranking survey with additional reliability and robustness.
With several professedly education news publications following in EducationWorld’s wake and transforming schools rankings into a blatantly quid pro quo business, there is considerable cynicism within academics and educators about the social utility and benefit of institutional surveys, as also of the pioneer EWISR. However Dr. Shayama Chona, the legendary former principal of Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram (Delhi) during whose stewardship DPS was routinely ranked India’s premier co-ed day school, is convinced that ranking surveys and the annual EWISR in particular, discharge a salutary social purpose.

“The breadth and depth of EWISR which enables the country’s best schools to gain wide publicity, if not awards, prompts every institution to undertake determined improvement efforts. This survey also encourages obscure schools in Tier-II and Tier-III cities and small towns to step forward into the limelight and offer themselves up to scrutiny, and compete to attract not only best students, but teachers as well. All this is very much in the public interest,” says Dr. Chona.

Again this year, to add objectivity under the parameter of academic reputation, we have introduced the Global Young Scholar Talent Search in partnership with the US-based Global Young Scholar (GYS), promoted by Dr. Raymond Ravaglia, former dean of pre-collegiate studies at Stanford University. In early June, schools were invited to nominate classes VI-XI students to write a 25-minute GYS online exam assessing students’ mathematical capability, reading proficiency, and logical reasoning skills.

Moreover, to add an element of objectivity under the parameter of curriculum and pedagogy (Higher Order Thinking Skills), we have introduced a Higher Order Thinking Test in partnership with LogIQids, an ed-tech company promoted in 2016 by IIT/IIM alumni to develop students’ critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity through gamified worksheets comprising age-appropriate puzzles and brain teasers. In early June, all EWISR schools were invited to nominate students (10 each from classes IV, VI, VIII) to write the 30-minute online Higher Order Thinking Test. In its second year, this test has attracted better response.

Last month (September) in Part I of EWISR 2024-25, we rated and ranked over 3,000 Day schools (co-ed day, boys, girls and day-cum-boarding) as well as Vintage/Legacy Day schools within these categories. In the current EWISR 2024-25 Part II issue, we present Boarding (co-ed, boys and girls), International (day, day-cum-boarding and wholly residential) and vintage/legacy schools. Also included are top Central and state government schools, special needs, philanthropy and Super 40 budget private schools league tables.

As I have said on several public platforms, if you present proof of more detailed and comprehensive ratings and rankings of primary-secondary schools in any country worldwide, you could win a prize of Rs. 50,000!