1st Day @ Nursery School

Day before was my daughter's first day at the nursery school. I am not sure if you've been reading this blog regularly but this is the end of about 6 months of exercise and running around. School selection, filling, submitting application, interactions, lists, lucky draws, fees payment etc etc etc...am so glad it's over and done with!! PHEW!!!

Also, I think we were extremely lucky in the process; our daughter got through all but 2 schools which was a very pleasant surprise and then choosing between the schools was not that difficult. My wife was instrumental in getting all this done, I was not able to give time due to the office chores and she was the one draining herself out. Also, need to thank Shaleen, a friend and a colleague and support and helping us taking the final decision. Thanks bro!

I think now the difficult part begins...I am sure there will be a lot of conversations, controversies, issues, problems in the next 14 yrs of schooling., but as I said earlier one bit is done, another one on the way!!!

Nursery admission and us!

Tomorrow is a very important day for us, we are finally going to get our daughter admitted to nursery. It may sound funny to some and familiar to some of you, what I can guarantee is that the people whom this sound funny have never been close vicinity of a 3-5 year old kid.

I am not sure about the other cities in India but in Delhi, getting admission to a "good" nursery school is a pain at all the wrong places. I think we were lucky to see our daughter get through more than a couple of schools. Once you get through a school the next step is more painful, getting ready and paying through your nose. Take this, the average admission fee of any school here is 50K to 90K and then you have to pay quarterly fee of anything from 15K to 30K. The books, dress, shoes, etc etc are on the top of this amount.

My sense is there is something fundamentally wrong with our education system, the primary problem being confusion between the school and govt laid processes, another being no transparency in the admission process. Noone is sure of the final criteria and the no. of points you would have got as a parent. My worse experience was with a school which asked for grandparent's education qualification, my and wife's yearly income, our 3 year ITR, the car we drive and if we live in a owned or a rented house.

I hate to say that the whole system stinks, but are we ready to stand up and say a firm NO. Unfortunately, the answer is a firm NO.