School Rating Article

School Rating

RagingBullEdu thought of rating colleges and schools and have started the process in year 2008. At that point of time RagingBullEdu was the only site which had analysed the Anna University Colleges based on Course Speciality, Primitiveness and ranked the colleges and published the report. In year 2012 we started the process of ranking the schools and to achieve that we analysed systematically and prepared a Survey Questionaire and sent to Schools by email and sought the response. It is being too challenging to achieve this, since most of the schools do not have a website nor even an emailid (eventhough creating an emailid with even free email providers like yahoo.com gmail.com or hotmail.com etc is absolutely free of cost) to send the questionaire. Then we decided to call the schools and requested for emailids so that we can communicate with them. But in the process we feel that the phone is being attended by admin / office staff and they feel that any communication with Principal or Correspondent is not possible and will not be provide any emailid if at all if they have one.

At this juncture, I feel that Indian Education system has to totally revamp and the thought process of educationist has to be changed first. There is strong feeling that Principal can be reached by parents only by visiting the school during school hours. Correspondent is not possible to be reached. This kind of thought is not good for the Educationists as well as the student plus Parent community.

Few fundamental questions come to my mind

1. Why Principal / Correspondent are not reachable to the parents?

2. How will parents represent their grievance / suggestions to the school management?(Of course the first step will be to educate that there should be some communication channel between Parents & Principal / Management)

3. Why Principal / Correspondent are not aware of the e-media communication and check mails or answer any call to mobile (Once again whether the Principal mobile numbers are provided to the parents for any urgent issues).

BearCat

All Tamil Nadu schools to be graded

CHENNAI: Parents in Tamil Nadu will no longer have to go by glossy advertisements and claims while selecting a school for their children. The government is planning to grade all 12,500 schools from nursery to higher secondary on a scale of A to D on 10 parameters.

The parameters include pupil-teacher ratio, classroom-pupil ratio, qualified teacher rating, teacher's salaries , play area, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities , number and quality of library books, green environment and sophistication, inclusive education and transparency in functioning.

The grading would be done using data provided by schools in the fee determination questionnaire circulated since 2009. Many parents felt it would help them. "But I am not sure if it would be accurate to use the same parameters for all from government-run institutions to international schools," said Rebecca Charles, mother of twin boys studying in a private matriculation school. Schools said the process should be transparent. "An audit is good, but the state should ensure there is transparency and genuineness the panel doing it should be competent; or if it is a self survey it should be genuine" , said Vael's Billabong High International School principal Meenakshi Ramesh.

Greenery and playgrounds on campus are going to be vital for schools as the government has embarked on a project to grade 12,500 of them across the state. The schools will be graded on a scale of A to D.

Only a school situated on a campus with trees with grown branches providing good shade would be considered as a school with a green environment. "A school having shrubs, trees grown for beauty and lawn cannot be construed as functioning under green environment, and such schools cannot claim any points under this criterion ," said the official document listing the parameters and rationale behind them. However, schools can claim points for the use of alternative energy source and 24x7 medical care under the sophistication parameter.

Schools that have been getting away with a playground hired from public bodies, like the corporation or municipality, cannot claim points under the per capita availability of playground area. The government also expects schools to keep parents informed about their functioning, and transparency in administration . It has given points for periodic function of mothers' monitoring team, students-parents grievance cell, display of fee structure on the notice board and school details on the school website, and periodic parent teachers association meeting .

Some parents, however, remained unconvinced. "In a brand-conscious country like India, this could mean that even if my child secures top marks in board exams, people would still say that she came from a 'C' or 'D' grade school. And that is very discouraging," said R Priyadarshini , a parent.

Sources in the school education department said that the exercise would help the state to also evaluate the impact of some of the parameters , such as teacher training, classroom environment and promotion of community participation. TN has been ahead of most states when it comes to student enrolment, but when it comes to learning outcome, independent studies have shown that the state lags behind some other states.

"There is nothing to judge here. Such an audit will show us where we are and where we have to go," said Amukta Mohapatra, director of The Blue Mountains School in Nilgiris. It should be done with community participation, which is an integral part of the Right to Education Act, she said.

Source : Times of India