I wish to express my gratitude for publishing the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012 (September).

Your commentary on the changing expectations of parents about school education is insightful and encouraging for the teachers community. The prominence given to views of eminent school and education leaders will definitely help to influence the future direction of primary-secondary education. I specially appreciated the views of the principals of the Krishnamurti Foundation schools and of the Rishi Valley School in particular, which are good for our society.

I also appreciate that your assessment methodology and analysis are improving year on year. This is a good sign for your magazine as well as for K-12 education.

My compliments to all your team members for good work. Thank you for helping school educators and principals by raising public awareness of vital education issues. 
Sundar Gandikota
Principal, Orchid International School
Nashik

Unfair survey

Although i convey my heartiest congratulations for publishing the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012 (EW September), I wish to place on record my dissatisfaction with the scores given to SAI International School, Bhubaneswar and want to draw your attention to the following facts.

• Teachers’ welfare: SAI offers excellent remuneration with maximum perquisites to all teachers.

• Co-curricular activities: We provide a wide array of co-curricular activities with an extra hour set aside for them every day.

• Sports: This is given top importance with students mandatorily required to engage in sports and games for an hour every day. In national and state-level tournaments in cricket, lawn tennis, table tennis, football, volleyball and swimming, our students have regularly bagged top prizes.

• Internationalism: SAI is an IGCSE-affiliated school and our students are required to compulsorily write the Cambridge ESOL examination. Every year the school hosts two international events and four international exchange programmes. In January 2012, SAI hosted the Young Global Schools Summit, attended by 150 representative schools of India and Sri Lanka. Moreover, this school was recently conferred the International School Award of the British Council.

• Community service: SAI’s Interact Club of Rotary International conducts community service programmes throughout the year. We have also adopted a government-run blind school, Patia village school, the Mother Teresa orphanage, etc.

In future, we request you to conduct a fair survey based on facts.
B.K. Sahoo
Chairman, SAI International School, Bhubaneswar

As explained in detail on pgs 42-43 of our cover story, the EW India School Rankings are based on the perceptions of 3,070 informed respondents, not facts — Editor

Strong objection

I read your cover story featuring the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012 (EW September). To my astonishment, I found SAI International School, Bhubaneswar ranked below many other schools especially on the parameters of internationalism and sports.

My child is a SAI student, and I feel obliged to inform you that the school is the British Council’s ambassador for the state of Odisha. It has been awarded ISA (International School Award) accreditation for 2010-13 and recently hosted the Young Global Schools Summit which was a grand success. To my knowledge DAV, Chandrasekharpur, ranked No.1 in Odisha, has no such achievements to its credit.

As a parent, I feel your survey was either incomplete or incorrect and I strongly object to such data being published. 
Ziniya Patnaik on e-mail

Credibility question

In the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012 (EW September), St. Peter’s Senior Secondary School, Kochi was rated on the basis of several criteria drawn up by you. That such a survey had been done without consulting the management and principal at any point of time, raises questions about the credibility of this exercise.

In my opinion, such surveys are a mere mockery because people who should be sharing the information are not taken into confidence. How can you rate schools which are located in rural and urban areas on the same parameters when wide heterogeneity exists in their clientele? Please clarify your source of information.
C.S. Johny
Principal, St. Peter’s Senior Secondary School, Kadayiruppu
Ernakulam

As explained in detail on pgs 42-43 of our cover story, sufficiently well-known schools rated by 3,000 plus informed parents, principals and educationists have been included in the rankings. Please read the cited pages of the cover story —Editor

Unparalleled exposure

I want to thank you for including internationalism as a new parameter in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012. This is a very necessary parameter in the rapidly globalising world. Young people don’t just see the Indian labour market as their job destination but the whole world as their potential oyster, and schools should make efforts to expose their students to the people and cultures of other countries.

In this connection, thank you for acknowledging the pre-eminent position of City Montessori School, Lucknow under this parameter. For your information, CMS organises 32 international events annually and each of them attracts four-70 participating teams from abroad. Moreover, we send 400 students abroad each year to take part in international competitions, camps and educational trips.

Thus, CMS students have unparalleled exposure to students from all over the world, and this also serves CMS’ agenda of peace education which is an important part of the NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework. In respect of global exposure of students, CMS is in a league of its own and, very proud about it.
Prof. Geeta Kingdon, Director
City Montessori School, Lucknow

Survey inclusion query

Congratulations on the successful completion of the cumbersome task of compiling the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2012 (EW September). But I have a submission: from Chhattisgarh only two schools have been included in your league tables which does not reflect well on our state.

There are numerous schools in Chhattisgarh which should have been included and ranked. In particular the Krishna Public School, which has an enrolment of more than 10,000 students. 
Please advise on how we can participate in the next year’s survey. 
Ashutosh Tripathi
Director, Krishna Public School
Raipur

Please download and complete the EducationWorld-C fore form on our website (educationworldonline.net) and forward to us – Editor

NIOS clarification

I refer to the report titled ‘RTE: More questions’ in your education news (EW, August, p.13). The news report filed by your Mumbai correspondent says: “In its July 19 affidavit filed in the Delhi high court, the HRD ministry also disclosed that the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS, estb. 1989) will be discontinued after 2015.” This is incorrect. To our knowledge, no such declaration has been made by the HRD ministry.

Perhaps the reference is to the discontinuation of NIOS’ Open Basic Education (OBE) for classes III-VIII children in the age group six-14 beyond 2014, which has become redundant after enactment of the Right to Education Act, 2009. However, NIOS will continue to offer OBE programmes for children in the 14-plus age group including those in classes X and XII, and students enroled in vocational programmes.

The observation that NIOS as a whole will be discontinued after 2015 misleads the general public and learners, which will not only adversely affect NIOS’ growth but also its credibility. I therefore request you to kindly publish a suitable corrigendum in the next issue to clarify our position.

We appreciate the patronage extended by your esteemed magazine in promoting open distance learning programmes, more specifically the open schooling system in the country. We hope such support will always be forthcoming from you in the future.
S.S. Jena
Chairman, NIOS
Noida

Major omission

I believe there has been a major oversight when your team went scouting around the country to identify 50 Indian education leaders (EW June). Kindly read the profile of Fr. George Hess S.J. of De Nobili School, Dhanbad, Jharkhand. Fr. Hess has transformed Dhanbad district into an education hub by setting up De Nobili satellite schools in all the coal towns of the district to impart quality education at nominal fees.

For further details on Fr. Hess’ contribution to education, please visit the CISCE website. Thousands of students who have passed through the portals of De Nobili schools in Dhanbad are doing wonderful work in India and abroad.
Tyrone D’Brass
Sherwood School, Tura