Every year there is much hullabaloo over the school rankings that are published. School rankings have become part of the education system and are commonly talked about as the students’ test results. Students wait with eager expectation that their school will be in the list. Parents are looking for the best schools to send their children to.

However, there has been a constant debate regarding the accuracy of the school rankings and the media has been doing its bit to determine whether the school rankings are relevant or not.

Experts say that the best measure of quality is one that can be understood and accepted by all. The barometers defined in the school rankings are often construed to be vague and ambiguous by the people.

The criteria for determining a school’s rank is the number of underprivileged students who study there and the number of students who go on and enter colleges.

The criteria can not be judged by an ordinary person as he wouldn’t care about underprivileged students studying at the same school as his child. He would be more interested in the quality of education. The number of students who go on to college is a good indicator of the success rate of a school but it includes students who would have just passed the exams and graduated.

There may be a high percentage of such students and this criterion is another considered too vague for anyone to understand.

The accuracy of the school rankings system will be in question till the process can be easily understood by everyone. The relevancy of the school rankings is another case.

There are many groups of people who can use the school rankings to their advantage:

Politicians

The politicians can use any issue to help boost their credentials. The school rankings can be used by them to boast about the education system’s progress in their term and how their efforts bore fruit and the number of high-ranked schools increased. Politicians have advisors and other people who can use the school rankings and twist them to make them look good.

Real Estate Investors

The locality in which a high-ranked school is located, or rather a number of high-ranked schools are located becomes a hot property for investment. The prices are expected to go up if the school rankings improve and the investors are observing the school rankings to pounce on any opportunity to buy up such properties.

Businessmen

The high-ranked schools become more popular with the general public and they are likely to attract more students than before. The school rankings can lure businessmen and entrepreneurs to enter the education business and start up a school, or invest in an existing school.

Schools

Every school strives to be respected and well-known. The school rankings can motivate schools to improve their performance and provide a better quality of education to their students so that they can be listed even higher in the school rankings next time around.

School rankings may not be an accurate measure of the quality and performance of a school, but they sure have a lot of relevance for many parties.