Congratulations for raising awareness of early childhood care and education (ECCE). EducationWorld has done a great service by impacting the vital importance of ECCE upon the public through conferences and especially the EducationWorld India Preschool Rankings (EW December) and awards.
Re the new categories (franchised, owned and part of high school) into which all preschools have been divided for ranking this year, I don’t understand why EducationWorld felt the need to make this segregation. The quality of ECCE and the common parameters on which all have been ranked have nothing to do with a preschool being franchised, owned or feeder of a high school.
Under the new classification system, many Podar Education Network preschools which are owned or attached with high schools, have been placed in the franchised category and vice versa. Although most parents aren’t bothered whether a preschool is franchised or owned, they definitely want to know who they’re dealing with. So if a parent has been told that a learning centre is owned and EW classifies it as franchised or other category preschool, they would feel cheated and infer that important information was withheld. Please instruct the company which conducts your survey to ensure each preschool is placed in the proper category.
Swati Popat Vats
President, Podar Education Network, Mumbai
The new taxonomy makes broad classifications. In the cases of preschool chains in which some institutions are owned and others franchised, it’s very time consuming to ascertain the exact status of each school. Therefore companies/chains with a mix of owned and franchised preschools are classified as being in the franchised category — Editor
Faulty logic
After the stupendous performance of Pathways schools in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2015, we had great expectations that our preschools would also be highly ranked. But this legitimate expectation was belied.
The reason for our disappointment is the new preschools classification system adopted this year. In 2014, Pathways Early Years, Sector 49 was ranked #3 in Gurgaon. This year we expected to be ranked higher as the team had put in a lot of hard work in the past academic year. But due to the new classification system our ranking has gone down to #7.
The logic of this new system is faulty. Just because Pathways Early Years is owned by the management of Pathways schools, it doesn’t need to be ranked in the composite schools category. Pathways Early Years is a standalone preschool and is independent of the composite Pathways schools.
Your new taxonomy will not only demoralise our team but will affect the image of Pathways Early Years externally as well. Dropping from #3 last year to #7 is a drastic fall and change of the classification system is unlikely to be accepted as an excuse.
I request you to please reassess the new system next year.
Jasmeet Chouhan
Sarla Holdings Pvt. Ltd
Gurgaon
Ranking mystery
We are surprised that the ranking of Bamboola Playschool, Chennai has dropped in the EW Preschool Rankings 2015 (EW December). Bamboola is the largest playschool in Chennai, spread across a built-up area of 16,000 sq. ft with nine air-conditioned classrooms, three well-equipped playgrounds, one large activity hall and high-quality indoor play equipment.
Moreover, our teacher welfare and development programmes are excellent. Therefore it is a mystery how we could have dropped in the estimation of the public.
I would like to know how you’ve arrived at the rankings. Last year you rated us #1 for infrastructure provision and parental involvement. How can these rankings drop when all we have done is improve our standards? Please advise how you have arrived at the rankings.
Sujata Vijay
Director, Bamboola, Chennai
The rating and rankings methodology is described in detail on page 46 of our cover story — Editor
Positive result
Thanks for your thought-provoking editorial ‘Bihar’s choice between devil & deep sea’ (EW December). The BJP lost Bihar because of caste factors and its failure to redress the damage caused by party functionaries making inflammatory statements.
It’s unfortunate how some tainted leaders have emerged stronger after the Bihar state elections. I hope the election outcome prompts politicians to go beyond vote bank politics and think of the country.
Mahesh Kapasi
Delhi