Private School Admissions in Chennai

This is a narration of real events that one of my colleagues endured last year which I know I will have to go through pretty soon as well!!!

As many of you know, I work in the night shift and normally sleep when others are awake. So the only time I get to speak with wifey (take on spidey as she has a similar 7th sense) is during our lunch just before I start to office. Although most days, the topics are generally inane like the War in Afghanistan, Gulf Oil spill, stock market manipulation etc., occasionally we discuss more significant topics like grocery purchases and the menu for the next day. This is precisely the reason I was shocked when wifey brought up this topic at lunch yesterday.

The topic was so significant and she was so fervent, I could not believe it was the same woman I had married! Of course the topic of discussion was our child's schooling. I thought we still had a good year and a half to start worrying (my son is 14 months old to be exact), but was brought to my senses by what wifey demanded. She had already chosen the school and will not even consider any other alternates I had to suggest. I knew that the school she suggested was good and also remembered some nugget of info about this school I had filed in some dusty corner of my brain which was narrated by my colleague last year. So, I sought out that colleague and took him outside the office for a break to refresh my memory. What you are about to read on is the narration of his experience.

My colleague had planned to put his kid in this school in LKG. One cold November night, he was going home after a tiring day at the office and happened to pass by the school and found a crowd standing in line. On inquiry, he learnt that the school was distributing Application forms for admission to LKG (in November for the classes that start in June of the following year). So, our man went to his home, refreshed himself, had dinner and came back around 11pm. By this time the crowd had swelled to about 50 people in line. This crowd was waiting for the school office to open the NEXTmorning at 9 am!!! Remember, this is for LKG admission.

So after an overnight vigil (I did not do that even for my US visa!) and due to the much larger crowd (around 500 by now), the school authorities opened the gates at 8 am. Our man rushed in along with the others thinking it would be a 'splash and dash' of paying money and getting the form. That is where he was wrong. The crowd was segregated into batches of around 50 and asked to wait in an ante-room. Then, they were asked to move to the next ante-room and so on till finally the forms were distributed at the 5th room. (spot the similarity between this and the Tirumala temple queue system?)

Now that he has successfully got the form, our man filled it up and returned it in 2 hours (though he had 2 day's time). Then there was an interview of the child. A process where a couple of teachers and the Principle of the school show various objects like plastic vegetables or animal dolls and ask the child for the answer. Once the interview is over, you enter the period of tense anticipation for the results which usually take a couple of days. Then you go over to the school and see if your child's name is on the list. 

If the name is not on the list, then you go through the much bigger and complicated task of obtaining recommendation letters etc. See how the process is simplicity in itself??!!!

I was obviously stunned into a stupor listening to this and my colleague stopped just short of performing CPR on me to revive my senses. After about 15 min of struggle when I got my speech back, I feebly asked him why he endured this much for a simple LKG admission? His reply was, "This process once completed, ensures my kid studies in a good school till 12th Std and I am sure he gets the best education" (same line that wifey had used!!!). Then as an afterthought he added, "since they have stopped LKG admissions altogether, you may need to start early. Now they admit only into pre-KG and usually they give the applications a year in advance, so why don't you go check with the school office tomorrow"? 

I relapsed into my stunned stupor!!!