KV-IIT is best govt school, says all-India survey

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Government schools many times make news for the lack of facilities, but, a recent survey conducted for government schools in 12 cities and few states has listed Chennai's Kendriya Vidyalaya- IIT-Madras campus at the first place. Ten other schools from Tamil Nadu have fared in the top 10 of the various categories. 

In the survey conducted in Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Mumbai, Kanpur, Bhopal, Kolkata and Kochi, more than 1,000 fees-paying and non-fees paying parents who belonged to the socio-economic categories B, C and D. Besides parents, teachers, principals, educationists and academicians were interviewed by 203 field researchers of C-Fore, a marketing company in Delhi. The survey was conducted between May and July, and the results were declared in September. 

The interviewees were asked to rate the school on a 10-point scale based on 14 parameters like teacher welfare and development, competence of faculty, sports education, special needs education, co-curricular education, infrastructure provision, academic reputation, value for money, individual attention to students, leadership/management quality, parental involvement, internationalism, community service, and life skills education and conflict management. The interviewers gave competence of faculty double weightage. The scores were totaled and rounded-off to identify the ranks of the schools. 

"The objective of the annual school rankings is to track the country's best schools as role models for the entire community of educators, and inspire top-ranked institutes themselves to improve from good to great," said Dilip Thakore, founder of Education World. 

Seven out of the top 10 government day schools are Kendriya Vidyalaya's with Kendriya Vidyalaya of IIT-Madras campus at the top. The school scored 981 points out of 1500 during the survey, leading Kendriya Vidyalaya, NMR, JNU Campus, Delhi by four points. Two other schools from Delhi, Rajikiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya, Dwarka is at the third place with 951 points and its branch in Shalimar Bagh is at the sixth place with 925 points. There are two schools from Kerala, one each from Kolkata, Kanpur, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Mumbai. 

The Jadavpur Vidyapith, Kolkata stands fourth with 946 points, Kenriya Vidyalaya- IIT Kanpur and Government Vocational Higher Secondary School for Girls, Nadakkavu, Kozhikode at fifth place with 927 points, Kendriya Vidyalaya- IIT Bombay, Powai at seventh position with 909 points, Kendriya Vidyalaya No 1, Naval Base Kochi at eight, Uppal Hyderabad at ninth and Hebbal, Bangalore at tenth with 898, 875 and 861 points respectively. 

When parents are looking to send their wards to private school that levy a substantial amount of the middle-class' salary, government schools seem to be giving tough competition, too. Though, the margin of scores between private and government schools might be a good 200 points, with private schools taking the lead, experts feel government schools are improving standards gradually. "Almost 80% government schools in Tamil Nadu are following the necessary parameters to bring out the best in them. And, the board exam results every year are enough to support the fact," said J P Gandhi, an educational advisor from Salem. 

According to the ministry of human resource and development, there are close to 2lakh government schools in the country run by state, central and local governments. Almost 60% of the country's children study in government schools amounting to 13.8crore children nation-wide. About 9.2crore children study in private schools, the survey conducted by EducationWorld, an education consultancy in Delhi.