There is no official data on the number of children below three admitted to the district’s pre-primary schools.
Playschools, nurseries and the pre-primary section of Ahmedabad district’s private primary schools — most of which admit kids below 3 years of age — are profitable enterprises that generate an estimated Rs90 crore in business annually.
Ahmedabad has an estimated 300 nursery and playschools besides 400 primary schools, a majority of which also have pre-primary sections.
As per rules framed by the state government, the age for admission to primary schools in the state is three years.
There is no official data on the number of children below three admitted to the district’s pre-primary schools. However, officials of the district primary education office (DPEO) say that all private playschools, nurseries and a majority of primary schools that have nursery sections, admit children who are not yet three.
The schools are able to get away with this because there is no law to regulate the functioning of pre-primary schools and make it mandatory for them to take permission from the DPEO in this regard, the officials said.
These schools make money at every stage - from sale of admission forms and brochures to the monthly fee that parents have to pay after admission of their children. Sources said that if each of the estimated 700 playschools, nurseries and primary schools admits around 200 children (on an average).
The schools begin to earn with the sale of admission forms. As parents purchase forms from a number of schools before taking a decision on the best school for their child, it can be safely assumed that at least 2.80 lakh application forms are sold each year, the sources said. (This is double the number of students who actually take admission in pre-primary sections each year.)
On an average, the forms cost Rs30 apiece, their price varying from Rs10 to Rs50 per form. Hence, schools earn around Rs8.40 lakh every year merely from the sale of application forms. A senior academician of a reputed city school said that, generally, the pre-primary section of a school has four classes, each with 50 to 55 students.
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