Admissions...a nightmare for parents!

KANPUR: Mamta Chhabra, a housewife along with her husband Vivek Chabbra who is a businessman is busy these days taking tips from her cousins on how to attend an interview. The couple is not seeking a job for a coveted company but preparing hard for admission of their daughter Jiya in LKG in a presitigous school of the city.
The Chhabras are not alone to face the pre-admission blues, as for thousands of parents in the city, the nursery admissions are indeed giving sleepless nights to parents before their little one settles in the classroom.Interestingly, parents put in a lot of efforts to train their children to face the interviewer.
As is being experienced by Madhu Chauhan, a resident of Swarup Nagar: "I have seen how the schools judge the parents and child before admitting the child. And so, I had started teaching him nursery rhymes from the age of two." Schools conduct interviews in the name of 'social interaction' and this interaction gives tough time to parents, she added.
There is a craze for admission in private schools that are perceived as better options by the parents. While interview-blues are troubling the wards of tiny-tots, the school authorities claim the parents' interview to be more of a myth.
"It is just a general interaction with the child and his parents to check whether a child is fit to study in our school, which is now termed as interview. Interviewing parents during admissions is more of false belief that has come from metros. During interaction, we see whether the child is normal by observing movements; whether he/she can speak, hear and see properly. Above all, we see whether the child can learn in a normal school," pointed Supriya Grover, principal of an ICSE school in Kidwai Nagar.
However, few schools feel that there is nothing wrong in conducting interviews. " While interviewing, we get to know the attitude of the child. The aim is to know whether the child is comfortable in a school without parental presence," said Suman Agarwal, administrator of Euro Kids.
Another common complain shared by parents is the absence of transparency when it comes to admission process as they are still clueless on the parameters used to select the child. Though most schools list out the parameters, they doubt whether they are followed.
Meanwhile, schools claim that the evolution of child-friendly method and following the sibling criteria or alumni factor is another step adopted by the schools during nursery admissions.
Shilpa Manish, head mistress of Delhi Public School says that the school has been following a transparent system over the admissions. "As such the seats in our school are fixed. With increasing demand of parents preferring DPS, more branches have emerged in other parts of the city too, giving an opportunity to get the children admitted into our another branch," pointed the head mistress and went on to add: Criteria such as siblings, alumni, or management, are also included, but the admission procedure remains the same."
Baring a few convent and public schools, the other schools which have evolved a child-friendly method for admissions, feel that they have been successful in getting a good lot of disciplined and active students. The obvious alternatives that emerged from different interest groups were 'First Come, First Served' and lottery system.
"The admission which usually starts with a formal notice either through advertisement or at the school notice board notifying about the date and availability of the limited admission forms is the usual process in our school, " claimed Supriya Grover. "With seats being limited, we follow the 'First Come First Serve' system and the admissions get closed as soon as the seats are filled," she said.
However, with mushrooming and flourishing branches of the well established private schools in every nook and corner of the city, the parents, now have an option galore for the nursery admissions of their kids.
However, 28-year-old Mohit Basu, who got his son admitted in one of the prestigious schools in the city, says that he didn't have to quest for the admission of his son like preparing him for interview, jockeying contacts or making large donations.
However, the common thought that was shared by the parents and schools alike was the timely awareness about the distribution of forms, availability of seats, reputation of the schools and last dates of the admissions!