The second rank secured by Government Vocational Higher Secondary School for Girls, Nadakkavu, in the EducationWorld’s India School Ranking in 2019-20 among government schools for all-round excellence in the country, is another milestone for the 120-year-old institution.
The Nadakkavu school secured a total score of 1,061 and improved its performance from last year’s third position, said a release here on Tuesday. The survey is the world’s largest and most comprehensive assessment of primary-secondary schools with scores based on interviews with parents, senior school students, principals, and teachers. The schools are evaluated on 14 different categories, including expertise of teachers, quality of infrastructure, sports education, and leadership qualities of students. A sample respondents’ database of 12,213 people such as school principals, teachers, educationists, parents, and senior school students from 28 major cities and education hubs across the country were chosen by C fore, a New Delhi-based market research and opinion polls company, for conducting the survey.
The school was transformed after launching the PRISM (Promoting Regional Schools to International Standards through Multiple Interventions) project in 2013.
It was conceptualised by A. Pradeep Kumar, MLA, and funded by the Faizal and Shabana Foundation. Prestigious institutions such as the Indian Space Research Organisation, Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode, and the National Institute of Technology-Calicut had directly involved in the implementation of the project at various levels.
The school was converted into a model school soon, and world-class facilities such as high-tech classrooms, computer labs, IT room, well-equipped science labs, and spacious dining room with a capacity to accommodate around 2,500 persons, staff rooms, gymnasium, an indoor stadium with separate basketball, volleyball and badminton courts, astro turf hockey and football grounds were introduced.
Since then, the school has ranked consistently in the Top 10 ranking of EW India School ranking.
The success of the Nadakkavu School led to the Kerala government using it as a scalable model to transform 1,000 government schools in the State.