I am a regular attendee of the EducationWorld India School Rankings Awards ceremonies and I must say it gets better each year. It’s a great forum for school principals to meet and network. For us at the Jodhamal Public School, Jammu, it was a great feeling to be ranked the #1 school in Jammu & Kashmir for the third year in a row.

These rankings and awards motivate us to continuously strive to improve our school to be ranked with the best in the country, and to serve the nation with dedication. Our school has also been awarded the Future 50 Schools Shaping Success award of Fortune recently.

Thank you for hosting a great awards nite and bringing all educators on one platform to facilitate mutual learning.

Trilok Singh Bisht
Principal, Jodhamal Public School
Jammu 

 

Focus on VET

Your cover story ‘AISECT: India’s pioneering skills university’ (EW October) was an eye-opener. Dr. Santosh Choubey needs to be congratulated and thanked for founding this remarkable enterprise to provide vocational skills and training to youth in neglected tier II and III towns and cities and the rural hinterland. I was also very impressed with how he has linked training and employability by enabling vocational education and training (VET) graduates such as Santosh NET to set up Internet/financial e-service centres in villages.

For a country that hosts thousands of school drop-outs and millions of unemployed youth, there can’t be a better answer than vocational training. It’s high time our government wakes up to this fact and revamps our schools, colleges and universities to include VET. Across all education institutions, vocational training in one subject at least, should be made compulsory for all students.

Surendranath Sharma
Delhi

 

Great motivation
Notre Dame Academy, Patna was conferred the best Girls Day School in Bihar award at your superbly organised EW India School Rankings Awards function held in Gurgaon (Pictorial Essay, EW October). I would like to thank the 12,000-plus respondents to your survey for recognising and acknowledging the dedication and commitment of the school management, staff, parents and our industrious students to make this world a better place.

The rankings exercise was thorough and extensive with schools assessed on a wide range of parameters. Our #1 ranking is a great motivation for us to improve continuously.

Sr. Jessy SND
Principal, Notre Dame Academy
Patna

 

Questionable authenticity

The EducationWorld India School Rankings (EW September) is an appreciable endeavour undertaken by the EW team. However, we have questions about the authenticity of the 2017-18 rankings exercise as you have ranked Jabalpur’s Delhi Public School, Mandla Road lower than it deserves. According to your rankings, DPS, Mandla Road is #5 in Jabalpur and #191 in the country.

Please enlighten us on the basis of what statistics this ranking has been published in a national magazine without gathering any authentic information from the school. This seems to be an attempt to malign the name of our school — an esteemed institution whose motto is ‘Service before self,’ and which has been producing national and regional exam toppers every year.

H.L. Prajapati
Member, SMC (School Management Committee)
DPS, Mandla Road, Jabalpur

The ratings and ranking methodology is extensively detailed on p.45 of EW September, 2017 — Editor

 

Javadekar is wrong

Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar recently criticised private coaching centres for making children their slaves, whereas coaching centres have been doing their best to ensure students come out with flying colours in public exams. 

Most competitive exams require immense preparation, hard work and discipline. Professors at coaching centres put in extra efforts to prepare and train students for these exams. Sometimes, strictness is required in make a student successful, but if handled smartly, the student will appreciate the efforts of the institute. Understanding the strengths and infirmities of students and teaching them accordingly provides the best guidance to them. It also keeps students interested in learning and motivates them to give their best.

Randhir Kumar
Secretary, Fprep Online Coaching Institute, Bangalore