Parents skip pre-primary school, enrol kids to Class 1

On a hot summer afternoon, Ranjana Sharma, a pre-primary teacher from a budget private school in the city’s northern suburb — Kandivli — was busy doing the rounds of homes in the school’s vicinity, trying to convince parents to enrol their children in her school

On a hot summer afternoon, Ranjana Sharma, a pre-primary teacher from a budget private school in the city’s northern suburb — Kandivli — was busy doing the rounds of homes in the school’s vicinity, trying to convince parents to enrol their children in her school. She said that parents are now enrolling their children directly in Class 1 with the wrong belief that their child will not miss out on anything during the pandemic.

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“With schools going online, many parents are skipping pre-primary classes altogether and are enrolling children directly in Class 1. Many parents feel that they can save some money and have a wrong notion that the children will not miss out on anything as these are early years. But that is wrong,” said Sharma.

In 2020, Sharma’s school had barely five students in each grade, a number that usually goes up to 20 every year. In the absence of sufficient student strength, her school had to let go of some of her colleagues. “It was a bad situation. We charge minimum fees but parents were not in a position to spare even that. Even the ones who took admission did not pay immediately,” she said.

This year, a month before schools reopen for the new academic year, Sharma and her colleagues have only managed to get a handful of students.

A year after schools in the state closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown, early years and preschool education, which caters to students between the ages of two and six years, is the worst hit. Many preschools, especially the standalone private ones, had to shut down as they could not afford to bear the costs of teachers and the infrastructure due to very low enrolments.

Swati Popat Vats, president of the Early Childhood Association and Podar Education Network, said that a large number of parents decided to take a zero year in 2020.

“They did not realise that there is no such thing as a zero year in an early childhood education as 95% of brain development occurs in the first five years and these years are important for brain stimulation through language, socio-emotional development and cognitive nurturing,” she added.

Early educators said that while 2020 was a terrible year for preschools, 2021 has only shown a marginal improvement. “Parents are slowly realising that online learning is the only option in the current situation but there are still many parents who are not willing to bear the expenses of a proper early-years programme even though almost all preschools have slashed their fees,” said Neeti Nagarkar, education consultant and founder, Kids World Education.

Preschool chains said that while enrolments are slowly picking up, they are still creating awareness among more parents regarding the significance of early learning.

“We are clocking rising admissions numbers as more and more parents are adopting online learning options to start the academic year and then plan to move to classrooms, whenever pre-schools are allowed to resume physical classes,” said KVS Seshasai, chief executive officer, pre-K division, EuroKids International.

Since a large number of parents are still not enrolling children in a proper preschool of pre-primary programme, many companies have started offering short term bridge courses which are becoming popular among parents.

Vats, however, warned against such courses and said, “These are courses that try to cover a years’ education in two to three months. Sadly, this is detrimental for children because it would only lead to piling on of education and stress for the children as they have to cram so much in so little time,” she added.

For many parents from low-income backgrounds, however, budgeting for the child’s early education is becoming a challenge. “My husband works in a garment company in Andheri and was laid off a few months ago when the second wave began. We wanted to enrol our son in a nearby preschool but don’t know if we can afford it anymore,” said Sarika Mane, a parent from Mankhurd.