Arguably the autumnal issue of EducationWorld in which we publish our annual ratings and ranking of India’s best schools, is the most complex, labour-intensive — and most awaited — issue of the year. The objective behind the compilation and publication of school league tables is to advise school managements and stakeholders — parents, teachers, and students — about how well the informed public rates them on several vital parameters of education provision. Inevitably while the annual EW Schools Survey is eagerly awaited and generates considerable euphoria on the campuses of institutions which are highly ranked, it also arouses anger, disappointment and frustration within school managements who believe they deserve higher ratings and ranking. Already, as word about imminent publication of the league tables spread, we have received several angry calls questioning the validity and methodology of the survey conducted on our behalf by the Delhi-based polling and research agency C fore (Centre for forecasting and research).
As I have often had to explain to school managements and their stakeholders disappointed with their ratings in the EW Schools Survey, they are based on public perception, not ‘facts’. Sending inspection teams to every school to ascertain ground-level realities prior to publishing the league tables as is often suggested by irate callers, is an impossible, time-consuming process. But although the EW Schools Survey league tables are perceptual, public perception is important. After all, that’s how governments are elected in democratic countries — on the basis of public perception of the relative merits of candidates standing for public office, rather than on the basis of ‘facts’ which are difficult to ascertain.
Bearing this in mind, great care has been taken in the EW Schools Survey 2008 to ensure that the ratings of schools on 12 parameters including academic reputation, quality of school leadership/managements, faculty competence, infrastructure provision etc, truly reflect informed public opinion. In an exercise spread over three months, C fore field representatives interviewed a carefully chosen mix of 2,026 fee-paying parents, school principals, teachers and educationists in 15 cities across the country. Schools were divided into day, boarding and international categories and rated by sample respondents on 12 parameters of balanced education provision, with the parameter of faculty competence given double weightage because of its critical importance in education. The fruit of this mountain of labour is presented by way of 51 league tables accompanied by an explanatory narrative in this bumper issue of EducationWorld.
Nevertheless while great care and diligence has been exercised to make the EW Schools Survey 2008 fully representative of informed public opinion, we appreciate that it’s not the last word on the quality and achievements of institutions rated and ranked in this survey. At bottom, the league tables reflect the success of top-ranked schools in building and projecting their brand image. Therefore school managements disappointed with the outcome of this survey should emerge from their ivory towers and project the positive achievements of their institutions into the public domain, and share their best processes and practices with schools in their neighbourhoods and beyond. That’s the prescription for moving up in the league tables of the EW Schools Survey 2009.
