Uma and I have had the experience of admitting our children to school 5 times in a total of 8 years of schooling for Shruti, our eldest daughter. Since each has been with a different school, they qualify as the “first experience” every time. Given that we were the “constants” to these instances, our expectations (if narrated, as recollected) may possibly throw some light on the progression of “expectation” itself with time.
First with “SAPLING”, a nursery school presumably founded on the philosophy of J Krishnamurthy, got us to extend our strained budget with the only expectation that we were most likely to get into St. Joseph school – a renowned school of the Convent tradition affiliated with the State board of Maharashtra.
However, while attempting to put Shruti into Kindergarten, we, like all parents stood in queues overnight and applied to the who’s who of the schools in Pune. Since we could get admission into St. Helena’s (a school affiliated to the ICSE board) we gloated over the same despite the fact that it was nearly 15 kms from our then place of residence.
Two years later, we moved to Chennai, again hoping to join the likes of Padma Seshadri, DAV, etc. Climbing up and down various schools we ended with National Public School, where we were warmly received. We understood later (or satisfied ourselves with the thought) that the school itself had as hoary a tradition as the other names mentioned from which we were repulsed probably on the basis of a supply-demand metric. We were extremely satisfied with the school and the standard of education (CBSE).
Four years later, moving to Hyderabad and after a similar experience with HPS, DPS , DAV , Chinmaya, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, we settled for Lotus National School, on the only consideration that it was a CBSE school. The experience with the school was summed up by Uma in one word, “Bakwas”! (she means only the education) All places in Hyderabad had by now started to demand a capitation fee far in excess of our estimates. LNS did not charge any! We did not get in despite our willingness to pay in any of the biggies.
This year we moved again to Pune, and went through the whole exercise again with all the top schools including St. Helena, and have had to finally settle with a school - City International School. The only consolation of this choice (or the lack of it) is that it is affiliated to CBSE. The capitation fee is on par with DPS type mentioned above.
In case you missed it, I was not spared the experience of spending the whole night sitting on the footpath in front of the school gate. Only this time, they say, it was “Pipe down Romeo wrong balcony”. School was DAV, admission form denied after all the trouble.
In conclusion, Uma and I are clear that we purchase certificates from schools in the present methodology, not education. Uma says that Oru kalathilai, amma appa panam sethu vechu ponkal ikku kalynam pannu va. Ippo panam selevaithu admission vanga vendirkku. Whither Education? Expectation has now become clearly a financial proposition where one needs to multiply the expected gain by the probability of occurrence – as suggested for the stock markets.
First with “SAPLING”, a nursery school presumably founded on the philosophy of J Krishnamurthy, got us to extend our strained budget with the only expectation that we were most likely to get into St. Joseph school – a renowned school of the Convent tradition affiliated with the State board of Maharashtra.
However, while attempting to put Shruti into Kindergarten, we, like all parents stood in queues overnight and applied to the who’s who of the schools in Pune. Since we could get admission into St. Helena’s (a school affiliated to the ICSE board) we gloated over the same despite the fact that it was nearly 15 kms from our then place of residence.
Two years later, we moved to Chennai, again hoping to join the likes of Padma Seshadri, DAV, etc. Climbing up and down various schools we ended with National Public School, where we were warmly received. We understood later (or satisfied ourselves with the thought) that the school itself had as hoary a tradition as the other names mentioned from which we were repulsed probably on the basis of a supply-demand metric. We were extremely satisfied with the school and the standard of education (CBSE).
Four years later, moving to Hyderabad and after a similar experience with HPS, DPS , DAV , Chinmaya, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, we settled for Lotus National School, on the only consideration that it was a CBSE school. The experience with the school was summed up by Uma in one word, “Bakwas”! (she means only the education) All places in Hyderabad had by now started to demand a capitation fee far in excess of our estimates. LNS did not charge any! We did not get in despite our willingness to pay in any of the biggies.
This year we moved again to Pune, and went through the whole exercise again with all the top schools including St. Helena, and have had to finally settle with a school - City International School. The only consolation of this choice (or the lack of it) is that it is affiliated to CBSE. The capitation fee is on par with DPS type mentioned above.
In case you missed it, I was not spared the experience of spending the whole night sitting on the footpath in front of the school gate. Only this time, they say, it was “Pipe down Romeo wrong balcony”. School was DAV, admission form denied after all the trouble.
In conclusion, Uma and I are clear that we purchase certificates from schools in the present methodology, not education. Uma says that Oru kalathilai, amma appa panam sethu vechu ponkal ikku kalynam pannu va. Ippo panam selevaithu admission vanga vendirkku. Whither Education? Expectation has now become clearly a financial proposition where one needs to multiply the expected gain by the probability of occurrence – as suggested for the stock markets.
We are unable to do such a math in the case of education for our children.
Probably this was always the case with expectation and education.
Naresh & Uma,
ReplyDeleteYou guys have had quite the depth and breadth of experience in the school selection and application process. The process does sound absolutely harrowing, with a scant number of good schools and very many parents chasing after them. Precisely this prospect of good school hunting keeps many NRIs transfixed in their international abodes.
But I do wonder if part of the problem is one of artificially elevated expectation. In most discussions these days, we seem to talk about only the top few (3 to half dozen) very elite schools in an entire city, as in the list you mention for Chennai (PSBP, DAV etc). Would probably translate to Delhi Public or Bombay Scottish or Rishi Valley in other cities. This means we are then talking about a tiny number of seats that populations in the range of 5 to 15 million people compete for! That does sound like a recipe for elevated stress and disappointment.
Maybe I am romanticizing the past, but this situation may have been quite less stressful even as recently as when you and I went to school, nary a few years ago. I probably cannot speak for everyone, but a lot of folks in our generation, (Ganesh, Suresh, Shankar, me, Chakku, Umesh, Swathi, Neethi, you guys, Anand, Kalyani, Gayatri, Kanchana et al), did not necessarily go to a "Top 3" school in the entire city in which we lived. We simply went to a decent school within bussing distance of the neighborhood in which we lived (St Johns, St Marys, Vani Vidyala, whatever). And things worked out quite well for the all of us, I think.
I don't want to undermine the value of great educational pedigree. A PSBP, IIT and Stanford combination certainly does provide fantastic exposure and opportunity, and probably puts you on the right track to found a startup company in Palo Alto. But like they say, 99 out of a 100 startups don't make it--which makes me think, we could do that too!
That is so right...I don't think I spent half the amount of time trying to decide my college!!
ReplyDeleteI can't believe we are actually doing this for Kindergarten:-)