Page 47 - EW September 2025 Final

of bad manners and unwarranted
hubris to TSRS students.
Be that as it may, in the massive
3,000 schools-plus 2025-26 league
table of India’s most respected co-ed
day schools, there’s been a minor re-
arrangement of the seating order at
top table. The routinely high ranked
Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania
School, Thane (hitherto a suburb
of Mumbai) is promoted to #2 (cf.3
in 2024-25); Shiv Nadar School,
Gurugram to #3 (4); Suncity
School, Gurugram to #4 (5); with
Nirmal Bhartia, Delhi to #5 (6)
completing the top table.
Rupa Chakravarty, the erudite
and experienced Founding-Principal
of Suncity School, Gurugram
Suncity, Gurugram’s Rupa Chakravarty: professional development fallout (SSG, promoted in 2006 by the
media and energy corporate heavy-
This initiative has been driven by the seven of the 14 parameters of school weight Essel Group) is very pleased
need to spare readers the tedium and education excellence. with the steady rise of SSG in the
deja vu of witnessing the same insti- Regrettably and surprisingly, annual EWISR league tables. Ranked
tutions topping the Co-ed day (and despite numerous phone calls and #17 in 2022, #15 in 2023 and #5 last
other) league tables year after year. digital messages, Manika Sharma, year, it is ranked #4 in 2025-26 with
And also to provide opportunity to Director of TSRS — declined to high scores under seven of 14 param-
other schools to advance higher in respond for a celebratory interview eters of school education excellence.
EW league tables. Therefore, there’s and share the secrets of success of “Continuous promotion by dif-
considerable rearrangement of seat- India’s top-ranked Co-ed day school ferent sets of sample respondents
ing in the national, states and city for the benefit of the larger schools every year is strong endorsement
league tables of co-ed day schools. community. Presumably lulled into and validation of the innovative
Against this backdrop, this year’s complacency by the huge applica- beyond-the-curriculum education
9,500 sample respondents have tions to admissions ratio (reportedly rooted in sanskar (Indian values)
awarded the biggest promotion to 100:1), Sharma believes that TSRS that we provide our children in
the highly respected The Shri Ram doesn’t need the oxygen of publicity. SSG,” says Chakravarty, a botany
School, Vasant Vihar/Moulsari, It’s submitted that such com- and English postgraduate of Calcutta
Delhi (TSRS, estb.1988) which placency is myopic and not in the University with leadership diplomas
dominated the EW India School interest of the school. High rank in from IIM-Ahmedabad, Harvard
Rankings in the early years after the the annual EWISR — which over the and Birmingham universities who
annual EWISR was launched as the past two decades of uninterrupted acquired several decades of teach-
country’s first never-before primary- publication has evolved into the ing and admin experience in Dunlop
secondary schools ranking survey world’s largest and most compre- English, Kolkata and Lakshmipat
in 2007. However in recent years hensive schools ranking survey — is Singhania, Udaipur schools prior to
perhaps because of institutional important because it also attracts being appointed Founding-Principal
complacency and negligible image high quality teachers and alumni and of SSG by Essel Group’s Chandra
projection, TSRS — although invari- public endowments for infrastruc- brothers in 2005.
ably ranked among the Top 10 — had ture upgradation as also for winning Chakravarty is especially elated
fallen out of favour with sample re- public (including official) goodwill. about by SSG’s high score under the
spondents. Nevertheless the sample In the circumstances Sharma’s parameter of teacher welfare and
respondents database constituted dogged refusal to respond to repeat- development “which is the source
for 2025-26 has given the almost- ed pleas for a 10 minute interview of several downstream benefits”.
impossible-to get- into TSRS a huge with the country’s indisputably #1 “We invest considerable resources
promotion to India #1 (from #7 in education publication is a damaging — time and money — in enlisting
2024-25) with highest scores under self-goal and sets a negative example our teachers in intensive teacher

SEPTEMBER 2025 EDUCATIONWORLD 47