Mission admission

To be able to go to school, a three-year-old must demonstrate an ability to sit still for half an hour, display ‘attentiveness’ and exhibit supreme self-confidence, so that a four-member interview panel (comprising only adults) is convinced she has enough ‘merit’ to get admission in their institution. As a result, paranoid parents are enrolling their wards in ‘coaching classes’ at as early an age as two.

Three-year-old Pankhi Vohra is convinced it was a red dog. Her mother, who had been waiting anxiously outside, suspects it may have been a brown dog. Or a red fox. “They showed me a red dog,” repeats Pankhi. But her mother is having a panic attack. “It probably was a fox and she didn’t notice the bushy tail, or she got the dog’s colour all wrong,” she mutters to herself.

Pankhi knows all about how to give an interview. After all, she has trained for this day for more than a year now. “Sit straight, shoulders back, and answer only in full sentences,” she says, mimicking her private “interview” tutor, who comes home for their training sessions. She also goes to a regular play school, the last few months of which were devoted to preparing the kids for the upcoming school admission process.

Garima Vohra, like most city parents, started planning her daughter’s education two years in advance. She was clear which schools she wanted her daughter to go to: it had to be either Cathedral and John Connon School at Fort, or Villa Theresa High School at Peddar Road or Dhirubhai Ambani International School at Bandra Kurla Complex — the best of the lot. 

Just like IIT-JEE or CAT
Preparing students for entrance exams has always been big business, especially with the engineering and MBA admission exams getting more and more competitive by the day. However, the latest clientele of the coaching industry is a much younger age-group: two and three-year-olds, whose parents hope that extra attention might get their children into the most coveted schools in the city. Most enrol their kids for extra classes as early as the age of 2. Vohra claims that she knows of plenty of children who didn’t made it through to the ‘good’ schools mainly because they never went to any of these coaching classes.

Most schools have an interviewing process that lasts for about 20 minutes to half an hour. A panel consisting of four to five teachers usually interviews the child. Parents are not allowed to sit with the child during this period. They test children on their motor skills (co-ordination of muscle and eye movement that is tested by giving children jigsaw and picture puzzles to solve), attentiveness, and ‘confidence levels’.

Children are also asked to ‘introduce themselves’ and judged on how fluently they speak. Then, they are asked to identify a picture or an object and describe it in a few lines, recite the alphabet song or a nursery rhyme or two. Due to the emphasis on fluency in English, teaching the child his/her own mother tongue often takes a backseat.

Parents only converse in English in the presence of the child so he/she can pick up words faster.

Some schools have a two-stage interview process. In the first stage, parents and children are interviewed together. The short-listed children then move on to the second, “individual interview” round.

“I feel like my three-year-old is preparing for an IIT or an IIM exam. It’s that strenuous for a child his age. My son is extremely restless. The training had to start with teaching him how to not get intimidated when a stranger asks a question, and how to sit still for half an hour,” says Shobhna Mehta.

10-month waiting lists
Mehta’s son Kaushik, 3, has not only been going to play school but also attending two extra classes — “specialised classes” that train the kid for an interview process in a different school. Kaushik appeared for four school interviews this year and has already been ‘rejected’ by Dhirubhai Ambani International School at Bandra Kurla Complex. “I have no idea what happened inside the interview room. My son refuses to talk about it,” says Mehta. “There are certain teachers you go to if you want your kid to get into a certain school, and another set if you want your child trained according to the interview pattern of some other school. The worst part is that there are 10-month long waiting lists for enrolment in these classes. Some teachers have as many as four batches a day.”

Children, very often, are not even aware that they are going through a screening process. “Why put them through something they don’t even understand?” asks Anuradha Sovani, head of department of applied psychology, Mumbai University. What they do understand and feel is the parents’ angst. There are children who refuse to say a word during the interview process, says Sovani, because they’ve been told not to talk to a stranger. Once they are out they have to face the ire of their parents. “The child is not even old enough know the difference [between a stranger you shouldn’t talk to and a stranger who’s part of an interview panel].”

Most children who train for the interviews are transported directly from their play school to extra classes, either by an anxious mother or a driver, leaving them with very little play time. The classes cost anything between Rs2,000 to Rs4,000 per month and depend largely on the school the parent is focussing on.

Neeta Modi, who conducts admission training sessions for ICSE and IB schools, takes her curriculum very seriously. “I don’t have waiting lists and I don’t take children before the age of three and a half years. I don’t pressurise the kids either, but exposure is the most important thing. If the kids don’t come to class they will in any case be sitting at home and watching TV. You will see a marked difference between a child who has trained with me and an untrained child,” she says. She focuses on four key areas during her sessions: numbers, general knowledge, personal information, and picture talk.

Her training sessions, Modi claims, not only help with the interview process but also inculcate discipline and good manners. “What is wrong with a selection process?

Schools will obviously want the smartest kids. These days even 94 per cent is not considered a good percentage in the board exams. It is a competitive world,” she argues.

Mehta seconds this. She insists that only if her son gets into a “top” school can she be at peace. “A good school is all he needs and his future will be in good hands,” she says.

But Sovani recognises a pattern here. “What the parents don’t realise is that it is just the beginning of a cycle. Once your child is through a particular school, you want the kid to score well. Then you want him to excel in extra-curricular activities. It never ends.”

Sovani often comes across students who are stressed out due to examination pressure and the high expectations of demanding parents.

Scrap the interviews
Around a decade ago, a movement of sorts started in Delhi against a similar interviewing process in the capital’s private schools. A committee comprising education experts, jurists and parents was put together to assess the issue. In 2006, the Delhi High Court banned all interviews during the nursery admission process.

Taking a cue from this decision, activists and parents in Mumbai started pushing for a similar ban in the state. However, despite repeated efforts, there hasn’t been any change in the policy. Jayant Jain, president, Forum for Fairness in Education, receives complaints on a regular basis even today. “The thought of sending toddlers to coaching classes is very disturbing. In spite of all these efforts, most students don’t get through the interviews in the so-called prestigious schools. Preference should be given to students living in the vicinity of the school and to the siblings of students already admitted. The interview process should be scrapped entirely,” he says.

The parents saw some hope when the Maharashtra government set up a panel to revive the ban on school interviews in September, this year. Jain was part of that panel. “We just had a few meetings in the initial months and then there was no discussion on the topic whatsoever. I doubt they will do anything about it,” he says. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2009, that was passed in the parliament this year mentions that the interview process should be banned and an alternative method for school admissions should be worked out, but it might take years for it to get implemented, says Jain.  

Saying ‘No’ to coaching
There are parents in the city, however, who have chosen to stay away from the competition. Anand Chowala, an engineer by profession and Urvi Chowala, residents of Worli, refused to get their children trained at a coaching class despite pressure from friends and relatives. “Everybody in my social circle was shocked but I wasn’t willing to put my kids through a training process at this age. Kids at 2 and 3 should spend maximum time at home with their parents. This is the time when a sense of security is developed. I’ve always believed that these classes do more damage than good,” she said.

Chowala, however, had to face the consequences. Two years ago, her daughter Mallika, 5, appeared for four admission interviews and didn’t make it to any of the ‘popular’ schools. Chowala became paranoid as the admission season neared its end, but eventually she found a school that did not subscribe to the interview process. She is quite happy with the school Mallika goes to. “My daughter is doing very well in her school. Children at this age can be moody. How do you judge a child’s intelligence in a span of twenty minutes?” Her two-year-old son, Arjun, who will be eligible for admissions next year, has also not joined any coaching class.

School as status symbol
Nitya Ramaswami, Head, Child Development Academics at Kidzee, a chain of pre-schools, argues that it is the parents who panic and pressurise the kids. The interviews, she claims, are relatively child-friendly. A few months before the admission process counsellors at Kidzee are bombarded with questions from paranoid parents about schools and admissions. “I have seen parents get panic attacks and high blood pressure a day before the interview. At Kidzee, we try and counsel the parents. There are enough schools in the city but parents often run after the ‘branded’ schools,” she says, adding, “Parents should pick schools based on the teaching methodology the school uses and not whether sending the child to a particular school is a status symbol or not. Children should be left out of this.”

Vohra, however, is keeping her fingers crossed. In a week’s time all the school admission results should be out and she will know if Pankhi has passed the test. “Once she is in, then dogs can be red, elephants can be blue and she can do what she wants to do.”

Some names have been changed on request