In November, with more than 6 months for the next academic year, parents are busy with picking the best schools where they like to admit their children. It might seem that it is too early, but the schools have already started their admission process. Interestingly, this is the case with admission process for nursery classes, play classes along with first standard. This shows how important it is for parents and children to secure admission in a best school as they desire.

A complex and lengthy procedure

As in the case of securing admission in a business schools, students and parents have to pass through lengthy and complicated procedures such as filling up of application forms, attending interviews, and anxiety and stress associated with the wait for publishing of list of admitted students. Parents often see this as the first and important step in securing or providing good education for their child.

How parents choose schools?

Sandeep Bachhe, a Mumbai-based technical analyst, has been monitoring and learning the curriculum and teaching methods that are adopted by various schools in his locality for the past eight months. He had identified seven to eight schools based on various parameters such as proximity, curriculum, and feedback. He then short listed those schools based on the feedbacks given by parents who sent their children to these schools and came up with a list of three schools.

Parents always want to provide the best education for their children. But Sandeep has found that parents most often consider only the affordability factor while selecting the best schools for their children, and not the curriculum they follow.

This projects that there are various other factors that should be taken into consideration while selecting schools.

Many curriculums to choose from

There was a time when there was only the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the State boards for the parents to choose from. But today there are many options in front of the parents which include the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) and the International Baccalaureate (IB) or the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) curricula.

Today most of the parents are aware of these choices, but still there are few points they should consider while selecting a suitable curricula for their children. In the case of parents with transferable jobs, then they should ideally go for ISCE or CBSE. Schools following these curriculums are found in most of the cities and tier 1 towns.

In the case of parents with a government job or any other job which involves transfer to tier 2 towns, they should go for schools following CBSE curricula. The idea behind this is that ICSE schools are still not popular in tier 2 towns in India. This helps the students in getting continuity in studies with respect to the curricula.

In the case of parents with overseas postings, they should go International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGSCE). Even if the family wants to migrate to any other country, the child’s education will not suffer.

Credibility of schools

Another important factor that parents should consider while selecting the schools is their credibility. In many of the Indian cities international schools are mushrooming like anything and it has become a very profitable business due to the high fee structure of such schools. It is considered by most of the parents as a fad, where they can say that their child is studying in an international school. The experience and expertise in the field of education are factors that add value to the credibility of the institution, but those factors are not enough.

Meenakshi Rajan, a Bangalore based IT professional, was very particular in sending her child to a school offering IGSCE curriculum. But after doing much of home work she soon learned that most of the schools following IGSCE or IB curriculum does not have the right kind of global recognition. She realized that schools with international recognition in every country are listed in the International Baccalaureate (IB) website. The IB website says that only 85 schools following IB curriculum have the necessary global recognition.

Schools focusing on student development

Among today’s schools most of them has realized that all students are not equal in terms of their preparation for schooling. This is dominant in children during the early years of their education. In some cases students will exhibit learning disorders such as dyslexia. In order to provide assistance to such students, many schools have come up with learning resource centers in order to provide extra care and coaching in order to improve their performance and to match them with other students in their same class.

Majority of the parents think that their child is the best student in the school, but in reality the child may be struggling with the curriculum. So it would be preferable to select schools with resource centers that will give assistance to students to perform better.

Another important factor that our schools should focus is the teacher to student ratio. This gains more importance in the lower schools where the child needs more attention. In schools with healthy teacher to student ratio, the teachers are able to identify the fields of interest of students. This will help them to provide assistance to improve the student in the field of their interest.

The minimum expense in a good ICSE school for a year is Rs 50,000, in the case of a lower class. In the case of IGSCE, it is in the range of Rs. One lakh. This expense keeps on recurring year after year. So parents have to start saving money accordingly for the coming years. It would be better if the parents start saving right from the time of conceiving the child. The parents should spend on educating the child till the child reaches the age of 24 or till he or she becomes financially independent. Parents should have a back up of fees for the next 2 to 3 years so that they will be relieved of worries coming up if there is lack of funds.