The end of my son’s first journey – Mr. Nobody speaks out his mind

My son, Aryan and many of his friends, will be finishing the first and the most important part of their life's educational journey in a matter of few days - their PRESCHOOL.  Although preschool education is a totally and absolutely neglected area in our country with the government not bringing in any regulation or restriction on the practice of this intricate art of molding young minds, there are some exceptional institutions in our country which have made it not only their responsibility but their mission to make sure that they give their best to our children.  And we are thankful to this institution for taking care of my son and many like him and making sure that the foundations of their knowledge are well laid in their little minds – and that institution is none other than Kidzee Vesu (Surat).

When we got transferred to Surat from our rural posting from Jamkhandi (Bagalkot District, Karnataka), our son was around 4 years old and had attended only minimal regular schooling (since we had admitted him to a local school in that village but he refused to go since that kind of traditional education did not fit his style of learning).  Hence, we were forced to do homeschooling for our child till we got transferred to Surat and did whatever best we can at home to teach him everything he wished to learn.  After our transfer to Surat, we searched everywhere for admission of our child as we had come in the middle of the year, i.e. October, and we were apprehensive that many schools may not grant him any admission due to the fact that he has not completed the first half year of schooling.  Although finding a playschool or nursery was not that big a challenge, since as I mentioned above, the preschool education segment is a totally unregulated and free-for-all field where every Tom, Dick, and Harry has opened up a preschool, even in shanties which can hardly be termed as a house, let alone a preschool.  And yes, everyone was willing to give Aryan an admission to their "preschools" (just to give a term of expression to such entities!) since all they cared for was the money that they will be earning.  For them, we and our son, were their "customers".  And this was what irritated us the most - if you treat us like customers, tomorrow you may not give us an honest opinion regarding our child, which may sometimes be negative and requires corrective action and would be very important to shape the child's personality in a positive direction.

Luckily for us, since we were new to Surat, we were not much aware of the roads and took a wrong turn to reach our home but that wrong turn turned out to be right one for us since we were able to see Kidzee nestled in between the houses.   Honestly speaking, we never knew that there was a Kidzee in the Vesu area of Surat and the fact that the Kidzee people never put any stupid advertisements in the newspapers or pamphlets added to our ignorance!  I strongly believe that a good brand never needs cheap advertising strategies and the brand name itself, the quality of its people, the level of its curriculum, and the hard work, dedication, and perseverance of the staff do the marketing job for them automatically. The next day we visited Kidzee Vesu and were guided properly and were relieved finally that we will be sending our child for his first journey in a safe and sound manner and that he will be a changed boy once he passes out of this institution - and we are happy to say that we were more than right in our decision.

What determines and differentiates a preschool education from a regular schooling is that the mind of a toddler works, understands, and functions at a totally different level than kids in the "schooling" age group.  Research shows that children are at their creative best during their preschool days and if nurtured properly, they can make the best out of their lives in future with better decision making and analytical skills than those children who were neglected in the preschooling stage.  In another words, preschooling is similar to nurturing the seed of a plant with the right amount of water and fertilizers in order to get optimum growth and to make sure the roots are firmly grounded in order to stand the plant in good steed during rough weather conditions.  Unfortunately the government is totally looking the other way around and has completely neglected this important area of education.  There are presently no regulations whatsoever for opening and running a playschool and no educational grants to institutions like Kidzee who are doing a great job by investing their own capital and resources.

In fact, we at Ethmos, genuinely believe that the government should not only bring strict but transparent regulation in this area but also provide assistance for starting more such playschools or its branches so that the benefit of this methodology of teaching can reach maximum population at an affordable cost.  The government should also develop a preschool teachers' training programme in order to prepare preschool teachers for our future generations to come.  Since Kidzee is itself a very recognized and reputed brand, the help of such well-established institutions can be taken for developing the overall curriculum as well as its implementation and delivery.

Coming back to my point, I would finally like to personally thank all the teachers and staff members of Kidzee Vesu (Surat) (especially Prateek Sir, Rosie Miss, and Shefali Madam) who have taken all the efforts, pain, and time in order to make sure that my son gets one of the best care and education away from his home.  In fact, I write this article with a hope that one day, say after 15-20 years from now, Aryan and all his friends who are studying with him now, will be reading this article and remember those great people who were there for them during their budding years.  I hope at that time they do acknowledge the great work of these people who laid the foundation of education for them - who taught them about alphabets, numbers, words, sentences, names of things and places, showed them various things and places; taught them how to read, write, eat, and speak; took the effort to mimic things before them in a funny manner so that their small brains can understand and digest a complex subject in its most beautiful simplicity (and believe me, it is no joke to simplify things in a most understandable manner)!

But for the time being – please accept my sincere thanks on everyone’s behalf and on behalf of Ethmos and Gyanarth.

THANK YOU