Over the past 15 years since the detailed globally unprecedented EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) survey was introduced, it has generated great enthusiasm within the educationists, institutional promoters, principals, teachers and students communities countrywide. This is because unlike all other schools ranking league tables (except for blatant knockoffs) which evaluate primary-secondary schools on a single parameter, i.e, learning outcomes in school-leaving board exams, the annual EWISR league tables assess schools under 12-15 parameters including teacher welfare and development, teachers competence, leadership, infrastructure, co-curricular menu, sports education, parental involvement, among others.

Moreover, the methodology adopted by us is based on elaborate — and expensive — field interviews, rather than the usual six jurors sitting in a room with little knowledge of schools beyond their bailiwicks. Every summer over a period of four months, field researchers of the Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd, aka C fore, Delhi, a highly-reputed specialised market research and opinion polls company, persuade over 14,000 carefully chosen, knowledgeable sample respondents (educationists, fees-paying parents, principals, teachers and senior students) to rate the country’s 3,500-4,000 most reputed schools on a scale of 1-100 on 12-15 parameters of school education excellence. Subsequently, the parameter scores are totaled to rank schools in 22 segregated categories. We believe that segregating schools for assessment and ranking is important to provide level playing fields and eliminate apples and oranges type comparisons.

The objective of this prolix explanation of our institutional ranking methodology is to assure readers that maximum possible care has been taken to make the annual EWISR league tables as fair and objective as possible to enable parents to choose most aptitudinally and emotionally suitable schools for their children. This is important because choosing a school that will optimally develop the unique intelligence(s) of children in their formative years will shape the rest of their lives. The proposition that academic reputation and record should be the sole criterion for selecting children’s schools has become obsolete.

We hope EWISR 2022-23 which rates and ranks 3,500-4,000 of India’s most admired schools in 392 cities and towns countrywide will aid and enable parents to select the most suitable school for their children. Simultaneously, a parallel objective of the annual EWISR — the world’s largest and most comprehensive schools ranking survey — is to stimulate and motivate institutional managements to strive for all-round perfection and benchmark themselves with globally respected schools. India’s 1.5 million schools — including 450,000 private schools — have a vitally important responsibility to nurture and develop the world’s largest and most high-potential child and youth population.