The agony of nursery admissions

A woman would beat up her two-year-old because he couldn’t get his colours right. To her little one, everything was blue. The mother would fret about how he would get admission in one of Karachi’s top schools. She made her son wear blue in case the teacher at the admission test asked him what colour he was wearing. Fortunately, the teacher did. But she also showed him a picture of a dog and asked him what it was. The child innocently replied, “doggie”. For a train he said “choo choo.” And who could blame him; we all love cutesy baby talk which the child inevitably picks up. However, based on this, the child was rejected admission.

This is no urban legend about desperate mothers. It’s true, tragic and completely ridiculous. Schools claim they want the “cream” but it is impossible to judge whether a child will grow up to be a genius based on silly things like these. And anyway instead of wanting the cream, isn’t it their job to take all sorts of kids and work to make them into the best they can be? Some argue that the schools are not to blame, when you have to pick 200 kids out of 2,000 you have to eliminate them based on little factors. But that means pressurising parents into pressurising their kids to learn skills which ideally they should do at their own pace – girls often develop skills six months earlier than boys – and this has the opposite effect of seriously hampering their development.

I think a first-come-first-serve basis and an interview with the parents should be more than enough. If the child must be tested they should be given toys or crayons and their confidence and behaviour observed from a distance, as some schools have started doing.

I understand that parents feel the need to secure a future for their kids, but this should not be at the cost of their childhood.

Published in the Express Tribune, June, 2010.