Nursery school shopping: Welcome to the nightmare

by Kamala ThiagarajanI'll never forget the day when I visited a friend in the hospital, after the birth of her son. Two days after her C-section, she was on the cell phone, hauling her husband over the coals for not having registered for that exclusive nursery. "We'll never get in ya, if he keeps forgetting to register. How can I go and do it myself when they've cut me up so bad?" she asks, making a wry face and pointing to her caesarian scar. ‘The baby’s only two days old," I, the uninitiated, gently remind her. 'That's two wasted days,"  she says firmly.[caption id="attachment_293728" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="Who would've thought that hunting for a pre-school for your child would be such a bizarre experience?AFP"][/caption]Curious, I ask her if registering at birth guarantees a seat. "Hell, no. There are two interviews for the parents. One for the child. Then we have to make a donation. Thanks goodness they haven't asked my in-laws to appear.” She sighs, waves her hands heavenwards and proclaims dramatically. 'There's so much to do."  So much that doesn't involve bathing, feeding and generally nurturing the newborn at hand.Who would've thought that hunting for a pre-school for your child would be such a bizarre experience? On one end of the spectrum, you have the ultra-exclusive nursery school with an “international’ tag, packed with technology that could make a space lab technician drool that all but draws your blood at the door to check if it's blue before they deign to talk to you. On the other hand, you have the Montessori culture that's mushrooming like stray supermarkets all over cities and small towns, claiming to change the face of urban India with their 'structured play' (which to me seems to calculate right down to last decimal the time the child will spend immersed in art, music and pinching his neighbour's ear).Now I appreciate the advantages of planning in advance as much as the next person, but this is bordering on the ridiculous. Gone were the days when you could walk into kindergarten and register your child's name for immediate enrollment. If you’re not afflicted with the waiting list syndrome (as admission to few select schools pile up), then you’re just not with it, or worse, don’t care enough for your child to take the trouble. Tiger parenting has gone beyond making your kids impossible over-achievers. It’s all about wheeling and dealing, enough to make even your neighbourhood politician blush, just to secure the "right" school for your child that could set them hurtling along on their journey to a starry future. And the minute they set their expensive feet into these hallowed halls, parental expectation is so extreme, it seems that every care rests on those cherubic shoulders that are bearing the school bag for the first time.As economic independence grows, now more than ever, nursery schools in India are becoming a one-way ticket to high society. And increasingly, high society types are the only ones that can afford nursery school education.  If you were thinking of saving for your child’s college fund, you may need to sink in your money a little earlier than planned, as learning ABC’s is getting decidedly more expensive every year. There’s no denying that LKG donations in select schools across the country are running to lakhs these days, especially in metros.Quite simply, it’s daylight robbery, but one that parents are more than happy to acquiesce to. After all, the kindergarten experience isn’t about the children, but about pampering the parent's sky-rocketing egos. I remember the time another friend turned down a dinner invitation to my house. "Sorry, I have to attend my son's graduation," she told me pompously. Her son, at the grand age of four, had just completed his UKG. She had spent all of the previous week shopping for a new dress and getting her hair done at a salon to celebrate the milestone!Having a two-year-old son myself, I haven’t been spared from the nursery shopping experience. When an ‘international’ school set up in my small town recently, spending obscene amounts on advertising, I was tempted to pay a visit and was consequently taken on the grand tour.“All our classrooms are air-conditioned,” the teacher told me with a smile. “After all, our pupil’s comfort comes first. We also use audio visual aids to teach our students, and all this right from Pre-KG.” Then she led me to one of the said classrooms. We opened the classroom door and oppressive heat clawed at me. No air-conditioned comfort in this furnace! Thanks to Tamil Nadu’s notorious power cuts, I learn that the AC had died out long ago. And yet, the room was equipped to anticipate the chill.Each classroom had only a single window and it was tinted with thick dark glass. There was no other ventilation. My eyes fell on a small boy, sitting away from the rest of his classmates and looking out rather forlornly, his chubby fingers scraping sadly against the glass. In the next classroom we visited, the teacher lunged at the audio-visual button and switched it on moments before we stepped in, startling some of the students nearby. After a bored glance, they turned away, not taking much interest in the cow jumping over the moon.  But the biggest surprise of all came when I spotted a huge, freshly dug pit, in the open ground, bordering a corridor that led to two kindergarten classrooms. I stopped in my tracks and stared. “And that will soon become our new swimming pool,’ the teacher announced grandly. “Why is it so close to the classrooms? Won’t the children be in danger of falling in?” I ask. The teacher looked at me like I’ve grown a third horn on my head. “We have three to four ayahs in every class to supervise students even when teachers are away. There’s no question of anyone falling in!” Just as there was no question of my ever sending my son to that school.While the choice of school is admittedly one of the most important decisions that parents would be called upon to make for kids, perhaps we should ask ourselves at this stage if our priorities are right.  Do we prefer that sleek swimming pool on campus rather than a well-equipped library, in case, God forbid, the latter would actually initiate a young mind into the joys of reading? Are we tempted to blindly apply to twenty of ‘top’ schools without ever once assessing whether those schools would be the right fit for our kids’ personalities? The teachers and principal are so busy interviewing us, but do we have a chance to assess their own capabilities before we hand over our children? Often, I realise the decision just isn’t in our hands. When school administrations can play God, judging not just the power of your pocket, but your social status, and even dictating at what age your children are expected to go to school, there’s little a parent can do.I’m reminded of another friend of mine who had moved to Chennai from a smaller town and was rejected by the admissions committee of a fancy nursery school near her home. The reason? The principal, a snooty woman with silver hair and imposing spectacles, told her categorically that the student applying for the LKG admissions in her school should be a graduate from one of the top five nurseries in Chennai.  When the principal learnt that the student in question hadn’t gone to any school before this, she put her hand on her heart, and shrieked ‘Four years old and hasn’t been to school? At all?’ She stressed every syllable, as though the friend were a village bumpkin or an imbecile. Needless to say, the interview was over!