Page 146 - EducationWorld December 2022

Cover Story EW BUDGET PRIVATE SCHOOL RANKINGS 2022-23
other
INDIA’S TOP-RANKED BUDGET PRIVATE SCHOOLS

BPS occupy a special
place in the hearts and
minds of EducationWorld
editors. They are a private
enterprise response to
rising public demand for
English language primary-
secondary education which
the majority of government
schools don’t provide

lthough the armchair crit-
ics tribe of communists,
closet bolsheviks, and
Aleft-liberal fellow travel-
lers love to hate them, India’s unique Shiksha Niketan, Jammu’s Mengi: triangular cooperation outcome
budget private schools (BPS) occupy a
special place in the hearts and minds the landmark Right of Children to their host states and cities.
of the editors of EducationWorld. Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) In September, we commissioned
Contrary to what lefties believe, the Act, 2009. Under this provision, pri- our partner company, Centre for
number of BPS countrywide is not vate schools that don’t maintain pre- Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (C
small. According to Centre for Civil scribed teacher-pupil ratios, separate fore, estb.2000) to conduct a field
Society (CCS, estb.1997), a respected storerooms for rations, kitchens for research survey to rate India’s most
Delhi-based think-tank, their total mid-day meals, playgrounds for chil- admired BPS for the EducationWorld
number pan-India is 400,000 with dren as detailed in the Schedule of the India Budget Private School Rankings
a massive aggregate enrolment of 60 Act, are liable to pay heavy fines and (EWIBPSR) 2022-23. Accordingly 55
million children. can be forcibly shut down. Shockingly, C fore field personnel interviewed
Yet comrades and fellow travellers government schools are exempt from 2,512 sample respondents compris-
who despite the collapse of the com- the provisions of s.19 and Schedule. ing 2,200 SEC (socio-economic cat-
munist Soviet Union still dominate Nevertheless because of insistent egory) ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ parents with
India’s academy and media, routinely public demand and despite constant school-going children and 312 teach-
disparage BPS. Because they are a harassment and extortion, BPS have ers to evaluate the best BPS on 11 pa-
private enterprise response to rising survived and modestly prospered rameters of K-12 excellence and rank
public demand for English language countrywide. And for reasons re- them inter se nationally, in their host
primary and secondary education counted above, BPS are highly valued states and cities.
which the vast majority of government within the Bengaluru and Mumbai of- This year EWIBPSR 2022-23 has
schools don’t provide. fices of EducationWorld for providing been divided into two segments —
However for the neta-babu broth- children of aspirational lower middle Super 30 budget private schools and
erhood, people’s preferences count for class households English education. remainder 654 BPS sufficiently well-
little. They know what’s best for ev- Indeed since 2015 EducationWorld known to sample respondents to be
eryone. So instead of raising govern- has been commissioning annual sur- included in our league tables. Low
ment schools standards and providing veys to rate and rank the country’s profile schools rated by less than 25
English education, their preferred most admired BPS on several param- sample respondents are not ranked.
option is to force BPS to shut down. eters of school education excellence, The BPS Super 30 are relatively well-
Therefore they slyly inserted s.19 into and ranking them nationally and in established, affordable primary-sec-

144 EDUCATIONWORLD DECEMBER 2022