the national institute of open schooling was an instant choice the sheer scale of operations nios gave 5 lakh outofschool students the chance to get an education in 201112 ensured its selection as a winner in the government category if nios was about scale sarvodaya kanya vidyalaya no2 of zeenat mahal won admiration for the determination with which its turnaround was achieved facing shutdown at one point this urdumedium school became one of the top performing government schools in delhi there was unanimity among the jury that nios and the sarvodaya school deserved a joint award if one was a shining example of macro intervention the other showed what can be achieved with microlevel efforts there was some debate about whether the turnaround of the sarvodaya school catering mostly to muslim girls in the walled city of delhi was sustainable as it seemed largely the effort of one principal however jm lyngdoh pointed out it was difficult to imagine a principal could turn a school around on her own its very difficult to turn around something from nothing others at the school also must have worked to make it possible he added sunita narain pointed out that the school was a micro effort but a very important and challenging one in a very difficult place in the corporate category the jury was not impressed with the finalists and decided they would award none they felt the claims by the corporate houses were not backed by enough evaluation of their initiatives it sparked a debate about the need for private investment in education jury chairman naresh chandra said that from his stint as finance secretary of rajasthan he knew states did not have the budget for school expansion even with an educational cess he clarified he wasnt biased against government schools as both his schooling and college education have been in government institutions some of the jury felt private capital ought to be used to strengthen the existing system such as improving sports facilities the award for ngos went to room to read the organization works with rural and urban slum communities establishing libraries in schools and publishing original childrens books in seven languages to encourage the habit of reading they have established over 4000 libraries in india syeda hameed said the room to read model seemed both scaleable and practical aruna roy who was familiar with the organizations work said it was functioning well and had helped make the concept of libraries familiar to children