Ranking top schools of India is one of the most challenging tasks given the large size of the ecosystem. This is the second edition of the Top School Ranking from digitalLEARNING. To start with, we sent the ranking questionnaires to more than 20,000 schools across the country. Schools displayed great enthusiasm in the exercise and over 5,000 schools sent us the filled-in questionnaire. In case of missing information in the submitted questionnaires, we also collected information available on school websites.

We allotted cumulative ranks to the schools and formed a state-wise ranking, segregated it in eight zones of India – Metros, North, Central, South, West, East, North-East and Union Territories.

This edition of the School Ranking has taken a 360 degree approach, while dissecting the expanding school segment, ranking schools and bringing forth the top schools in India.

Unlike other surveys that weigh heavily on metropolitan and big cities, our rankings have explored schools in the hinterland too.

The 2nd Top School Ranking features promising and emerging schools in major metros, Tier II & III cities across the length and breadth of India in terms of academic excellence, new pedagogy, extra-curricular activities, infrastructural facilities and ICT implementation.

The methods of research comprised capturing primary, secondary and perception data, which involved questionnaires, Internet research, social media, reviews, phone surveys etc.

Schools have been evaluated based on the following indicators:

School Reputation: Details pertaining to the year of inception, national level awards won by the school at various summits, the number of students who have passed out of the school and studying in different top level institutes in India and abroad were considered to evaluate this category.

Academic Performance: Academic performance for a child is of paramount importance while pursuing higher education, to be able to secure a bright and fulfilling future. The percentage of students acquiring marks above 90 per cent, between 75-90 per cent and less than 75 per cent was taken into consideration while evaluating the academic performance of schools.

Teachers’ Competence: Under this indicator, we have considered the number of permanent teachers, their qualifications, experience, and training programmes organised by the school for grading.

Academic Excellence: Under this indicator, we evaluated schools based on teacherstudent ratio, average class size, academic achievement awards to the students and cocurricular hours per week/student.

Infrastructure: This being one of the key parameters in ensuring healthy learning environment, schools were evaluated on the basis of campus area, total built-up area, labs, auditorium and the use of ICT in teaching and learning.

Students’ Development: In today’s competitive and ever-changing world, overall development of a student can be achieved only if the school acknowledges the importance of skill training programmes like life skills, leadership skills, sports, etc along with academics. We asked schools to submit details on the number of parent teacher meetings per year, life skills training for students, vocational and other skills, personal counselling for students, career counselling, excursion and outdoor activities, social responsibility, foreign languages taught, facilities for children with special needs, societies and clubs in the school, student-teacher exchange programmes and alumni database.

Sports and Extra-Curricular Activities: Sports are important for the overall development of children. We evaluated schools based on details like extra-curricular hours every week per student, sports infrastructure and the awards and accolades in sports won by the school.

Nishant S. Rajawat, Director – Technology, Cybernetyx Group, talks about the company’s array of products that makes learning simpler for today’s generation.

Q. There has been a lot of talk recently about our education system being too hard on students. Do you see a way where we can make the learning better and yet not compromising on the core value of imparting sufficient knowledge?
We have seen that the amount of topics that a student has to learn has become enormous currently. Many feel that given the prevailing situation, it is important for the students to learn expansively. I believe that though it might be necessary for the students to gain more well-rounded knowledge, we can atleast simplify it for them by speaking a language that they best understand and respond to. In the era of smartphones & tablet computers, we can’t really expect the students of this generation to conform to the traditional methods of knowledge gathering. It is important for us to speak the language that they want to hear and teach them in a way that they welcome. I feel that the need of the hour is to tweak the method of learning rather than the curriculum itself. These days there are methods which the students better associate with for example, digital platforms. That’s where ICT tools come into the picture.

Q. How do you see use of ICT tools shaping up the next gen classrooms?
Technology comes naturally to students of today (Digital Natives) and they understand, enjoy and utilize it better than ever. Thus, not only such awareness and willingness to use technology directs the students in the right direction, it also helps give a voice to the quietest child and improves performance as a whole. When Traditional textbooks are being replaced by digital, animated classroom content, White/Black boards are substituted by Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs), Cybernetyx believes to develop and introduce these technologies in the simplest forms. With the philosophy of “Freude an Technik” (the joy of technology), Cybernetyx conceptualizes, develops and manufactures the most advanced Multi-Touch award-winning Interactive Products in the world that are perfect complement to the conventional pedagogy in classrooms, in the process making sure that their ultimate users i.e. the teachers feel comfortable using them.

Q. Do you see this as a challenge for teachers?
I personally believe that Interactive Whiteboards can be the best friends of a new-age teacher. Interactive Whiteboards, Document cameras and other ICT tools solve real problems in the education such as preservation of notes, redundancy, saving time, student interest, bridging the gap between virtual and real world information and so on. Cybernetyx EyeRIS range of interactive products are simple to understand and use, yet powerful enough to equip the teacher for the next generation of teaching tools. Many students say that animations make concepts clearer, help understanding machines/equipments. Practical explanation of grammar with examples makes learning fun. Welllabeled animated diagrams enhance the learning experience. The implementation of ICT classrooms provides a school with a perfect mix of traditional teaching techniques and futuristic elements.

Q. Please tell us about your current product offering for the Indian Market?
Cybernetyx has had an extensive and enriching presence in India with a dedicated sales, development and support office located in NOIDA. Post the deployment of more than 26000 interactive systems from Cybernetyx India office, we command a leading market share and our flagship product EyeRIS (Eye-like Rapid Imaging System) is acknowledged widely as standard in the interactive whiteboard solutions space for both K-12 and higher education. Cybernetyx has always focused on providing our clients with industryleading and cost-effective ICT equipment and software solutions. We are a customer-centric organization and regular product updates and new product developments based on customer feedback are our strength and focus area. With our latest 7 gen EyeRIS products like 7090UST & 7120ST we have taken the ease of use of IWB to the very next level. With 7 series of products we have eliminated the biggest challenge that a user faces in a classroom : 9, 25 or even 49 point calibration. Our 7 series products are equipped with Auto-Calibration functionality so that you don’t have to calibrate them manually at all. With EyeRIS 6120ST and 7120ST we have tried to tap a relatively unexplored market of life-size IWB. The general size of our IWBs is now up to 120″ from the conventional 78″ and at a much more competitive price than the market. This eliminates the big issue of content visibility from the last benches in a midlarge sized classroom.

Additionally, we have introduced a new version of our highly appreciated UNIBOARD AIO solution – v1.1, and the recently introduced UNIBOARD Slim, keeping up with the changing trends in ICT setup in classrooms.Also, with customers moving towards short-throw projectors, our latest offering Cybernetyx i-Mount is compatible with nearly all short-throw projectors which are now available in India.

Q. How important is it to have software as good as the hardware?
A great hardware is the one which disappears in front of the users so that they can concentrate on what they are doing, what they are looking at, the content. Nearly at all times, the users (like the presenters, teachers and students) just face the software UI and UX. Thus, I believe that for ICT equipment, application and driver software may even bemore important than the under lying hardware. It is critical to have appropriate software to any high-end IWB hardware to utilize its full potential. Also, IWBs are primarily content creation and consumption devices and only great software foundation can enable these both. With EyeRIS and IntelliSpace, Cybernetyx has tried to make a genuine effort at such anamalgamated hardware and software experience. The best part is that the whole system is still simple, intelligent, intuitive and very easy to use. EyeRIS system as the hardware, is quite compact and unlike generic physical IWBs, fuses into the user experience once installed. IntelliSpace, on the other hand, then takes over beautifully as a functional UI and carefully crafted UX. Bundled with an in-built resource library spanning thousands of images, 3D content and also our unique cloud content capture feature of MyCloud, it allows teachers to access near infinite magnitude of free and world-class content. This allows teachers to express themselves in a whole new way in classrooms with the shortest learning curve.

Q. How important a role does the teacher training play as per you?
Teachers’ Training is extremely crucial & KSF for smooth implementation & roll-out of Digital Classroom Integration project. The ICT brings the entire world into the classroom, and only a teacher can play the role of the vanguard to the introduction to such enormous amount of information. We think it is our responsibility to make sure that proper training is imparted to every teacher and that they are able to extract the best out of it. We conduct training sessionsfor teachers, aimed at making them well-versed in utilizing the power of our solutions. All our training sessions are taken by Certified Trainers and we make sure that every training session gives maximum exposures towards the implementation of our solutions, at the same time keeping it interesting and fun. Cybernetyx also hasa teacher certification program where our trainers do a hands-on training, post completion of which, the qualifying teachers are certified. We feel that it is our responsibility to ensure smooth transition to our solutions as the key objective is to make the life of the teachers simpler and the understanding of the students easier and lasting. From where I see, it’s working awesome, it’s a lot of fun and it’s a win-win.

For more information Cybernetyx team could be contacted at:
info@cybernetyx.com
sales@cybernetyx.com

“I have a dream” … These are the famous words used by Martin Luther King in his speech seeking an end to discrimination of African Americans. He gave his life for his dream and in the end his dream came true. His words travelled through time and space to find an echo in the dream of a great visionary, eminent philanthropist and renowned educationist, Dr. Lilly George, the Founder-Managing Director of Shalom Hills Group of Schools. She believes in children as the builders of a new dawn; the architect and ushers of a new world order. Dr.Lilly George, through her indefatigable spirits and ceaseless efforts, too has breathed life into and galvanized into reality her vision by founding Shalom Hills International School. ‘Shalom-Hills’ itself means ‘Shanti Giri’ and Shalom Hills International School has taken birth out of her ardent dream of contributing to world peace through education and empowering young minds with the flame of knowledge, virtues and fine ethics. The motto, vision, mission, in fact the entire curriculum and infrastructure of Shalom Hills International School seeks to secure the holistic development of each and every student, whereby they emerge from the school portals as complete individuals and empowered torch-bearers.

The school has earned a unique place in the Cambridge University SU’s Guide to Excellence featuring the world’s best schools, colleges, universities and educational institutions. Shalom Hills is the only school in India which has been handpicked by Cambridge University (Students’ Union) for two consecutive years in running .

Our students won many honors that include the Cyber Fair Platinum Award – an American State Govt endorsed International Web-site designing competition; gained international acclaim in World Scholar’s Cup – Global Round held in Singapore; made a veritable clean sweep of top notch positions be it in Shri Utsav, an Inter-School Drama and Choreography Competition in the Shree Ram School, Horlicks Wiz Kid or Multiple Intelligences based Competitions.

In Shalom Hills, parental involvement and communication are considered as essential ingredients of a child’s holistic achievement and school’s development. In fact, the keystone of Shalom Hills International School is the inclusive and collaborative participation of parents and since its inception the school email id: feedback@shalomhills.com has served as a distinctive and completely transparent platform of communication between parents and management to keep the parents in the loop about the school functioning, activities and their child’s progress.

Also as part of Dr. Lilly George’s vision of a healthy, green, equitable and ecologically diverse world, which is connected through a commonwealth of green schools, Shalom Hills International School has adopted several green initiatives, like launching the K-12 green curriculum; Green School Programme in association with Centre of Environment Education, Delhi; GSP in collaboration with Climate Miles; Save Electricity Campaign; Community projects in association with NGO Uthaan; and Go Green drive which will go a long way in promoting an understanding of the larger concept of sustainability. The school is considered a forerunner in the Green School Programme and has been conferred the Most Sustainable School Award by Eco Slate and Climate Miles and the Econ Green School Award this year.

Applane Education, a Cloud ERP empowers educational institutions to focus on delivering high-quality education, while taking care of administrative tasks and assisting in repetitive resource intensive activities through seamless automation.

There exist many activities and processes that schools invest a lot of time and resources in, and without an automation software, these activities are repeated every year/quarter and following that need to be reviewed for accuracy. Applane automates all such activities and drives efficiencies higher by allowing the schools to divert the resources previously being wasted on repetitive and mundane activities like time-table generation, fee collection, student information management and result generation to name a few. Applane benefits not just the school administration but also, the teachers, students and parents by allowing them anytime anywhere access to their respective tasks. As a cloud based ERP, Applane is highly scalable amid large and medium sized organizations.

Martie Botha
Owner, Jumbo Education Foundation
“If I had Applane when I started my school, it would have definitely avoided lost time and money, together with the frustration I went through to make things work. I am glad to have found Applane and that I am using it now!”

Most of the ventures in this field work on the “Pay as you Go” (PAYG) model. The pricing also varies with the customization based on the number of modules an educational institution has subscribed to. Applane charges on a per student per month basis. For instance, if a school or college has subscribed for the complete ERP, the price charged will be Rs 40 per student per month. However, if the institute decides to customize the service and opts for only few, there is surely a decline in the price charged.

One of our favourite challenges is implementation in large chains of schools and colleges who wish to control/automate the processes of the entire chain – across institutions, using single software. To convince our clients of the importance of Applane, we typically start with a small implementation whose scope invariably increases as the clients began to use Applane.

Yogesh Agarwal, President at Applane believes that the technology-related solutions will bring revolution in education system. These systems will help the education sector in different ways. It will help bring process efficiencies and improvement in quality of service delivered; it will also release time for staff in educational institutions to do other productive work.

It will work to bring improvement in learner engagement and outcomes. With the use of effective technology, educational institutions can become ‘net knowledge creators’ rather than just knowledge disseminators.

“We offer 99 percent uptime guarantee for this cloud-based software,” claims Mr Shobhit Elhance, Vice President at Applane. He believes that the introduction of technologies in the educational systems will also enhance functional literacy, prevent dropouts and improve education system.

There are around 110 educational institutions in Gurgaon, comprising of around 74 schools, 19 engineering and architect colleges, 1 medical college and 16 management schools. “We, alone, offer the ERP service to around 10 institutions in Gurgaon.

Best CBSE School, Pune

The Orchid School, Pune
Principal: Shilpa Solanki
Curriculam: CBSE

Pune

Aurangabad

Nagpur

Nashik

Others

Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar

Vadodara

Surat

Asansol

Siliguri

Durgapur

Darjeeling