Interviews are over, but the nightmare lingers on

It was December 2010. The Mishras were having sleepless nights and cranky days as the couple was preparing its son Soham for interviews for school admission.

Soham was then just a three-and-a-half-years old moody child. And as was feared, he didn’t like the interviewer in one of the best city schools and refused to answer any of the questions.

Forward to June 2011: Little Soham is now attending a school, which definitely didn’t figure in the top list of his parents’ preference. He is also getting ready to crack the admission test in one of the best city schools this year.

“Soham knows it all. He knows the difference between sea green and marine blue. He can spell his name right and even identify tortoise and crab. But he is very moody and it becomes difficult to force him to answer anything,” says Ranjita, homemaker and Soham’s mother.

“I wish the school authorities would focus on the parents’ interview rather than the child’s,” she says.

Soham is among the children who are having a tough time in getting admissions to the schools of their choice.

Meet little Ishaan. He is in a play school, but is already getting ready for school admission tests to be held later this year. He has memorised several rhymes. He knows the numbers right and can even switch on and adjust volume in his computer.

“It is absolutely unfair to make three or four-year-olds go through the pressure of school admission. Schools these days believe in polishing and fine-tuning an already good product. They should focus on building the product from scratch. But unfortunately, school admissions have become a part of the system and parents are left with no other option than preparing their kids to go through the stress of admission,” says Sobha Banerjee, Ishaan’s mother.

Tired of the school admission hassles, a few parents are looking at alternatives. “I was not willing to go through that kind of pressure. Nor was I ready to make my child go through it. So we chose a school where the admission process was very relaxed, and what matters most is that you understand the school’s philosophy. Basically, they don’t want parents to come in with unnatural expectations since it is an alternative kind of school,” says Bindiya Sharma, a parent.

Vandana Seth, who shifted from Goa to Bangalore last year, also faced the pressure of admitting her five-year-old to a school.

“Admission process in Goa is different. All you need to do is to fill up a form. Initially, we were not prepared for written exams and interviews for my son. We were clueless about how to prepare him. It added up to a lot of stress for my son. But finally he got admission in a school at Vidyaranyapura where the focus is more on value education,” she says.