Shriyam Parajuli knows the names of all the months in sequence, can do double-digit addition and subtraction, match the names of animals with their young, and write her name in Nepali and complete sentences about her life in English. She is only five years old, and she is no child prodigy. She has learnt all this in preparation for the flurry of entrance tests for Grade One that she attended last week. Her mother Anita barely had time to rest that week, picking her daughter from one entrance exam and dropping her off at another.
This story is very familiar to parents with preschool-age
children. For this is the season of school admissions where one or the other
reputed school in the Valley has an entrance test everyday. In recent years,
these exams have taken on mythical proportions, they are no less of a
competition than getting into renowned engineering or medical schools. But these
children are much, much younger than their teenaged counterparts, and the premature
burden of examinations sits heavy on these fragile shoulders.
Just as SLC graduates go to bridge courses and Plus
Two graduates to MBBS preparation classes, many toddlers attend coaching classes
specially tailored for entrance examinations. The tuition costs start from Rs.
5,000 for a three-month course to Rs. 15,000 for a fifteen-day course. Entrance
examinations include English, Nepali, Mathematics and Science, and the coaching
syllabus is tailored accordingly.
“We provide the service that the market
demands,” says Rajan Subedi, Education Coordinator of St. Xavier’s Academy at
Bag Bazaar. The children are coached for an hour and a half for three months,
during which they give weekly exams on model question papers. They are not
required to pass these exams to graduate.
Parents who do not trust the indifferent
teaching methods of coaching institutions tutor their children at home. They
use specially prepared books modeled on entrance examinations of reputed
schools. Anita, Monitoring and Evaluation Assistant at WWF, reports that she
spent more than Rs. 1,000 on the books alone. And for those parents who want to
increase the chances of their child’s admission, there is the even more
exclusive method of home tutors. Alumni and schoolchildren from schools like
St. Xavier’s and St. Mary’s are highly in demand for these services.
“Since we don’t even know which schools to
choose, having someone who went to a reputed school tutor my child was very
helpful,” says Chandra Shivakoti, a resident of Koteshwor, who hired a tutor
for about three months at an average cost of Rs.100 per day. “Alumni are
familiar with the system and examination style at their school and can guide
the child through it well.” His daughter was admitted to St. Mary’s two years
ago.
After such heavy preparation, parents develop high
expectations of their children. “Please make my months of effort successful,” one
parent desperately prayed to her child as she sent him off to give the entrance
at St. Xavier’s School. But some tiny tots do not even know that they have
exams, let alone the significance of the moment. They end up becoming nervous,
some even crying during their exams. More so since the hustle and bustle of the
examination is such a contrast to the protected environs at preschools where
they are treated very gently and in small groups.
Schools do their best to handle these tumultuous
moments. “We bring the parents in if the child panics,” says Neeraj Thapa,
school staff of St. Xavier’s School. But at the end of the day, these children
are very young: many end up dropping the examination out of nervousness even if
they know the answers. In such environments, some parents consider it an
achievement if their child simply manages to coolly sit through the examination
at a reputed school.
Most preschools today keep these pressures in
mind when they design the curriculum. Children are taught well in advance that
they should go to the toilet before they enter the examination hall, they
should say “excuse me” if they need to leave in the middle, and other such
technical details. “Among other things, my child was taught to have eye-to-eye
contact with the interviewer during the interview,” says Muna Shakya*, mother
of a five-year-old daughter. Not surprisingly, the curriculum of preschools too
is modeled on the entrance question papers of reputed schools.
But after all this preparation, not every child
gets into the school of their (parents’) choice. At St. Xavier’s, one of the
most reputed schools of Nepal, more than 5,000 children compete for 200 seats,
meaning every child has less than four percent chance of getting into the
school. Other schools, like St. Mary’s or Little Angels, receive fewer
applications per seat, but the competition is still very tough.
Parents are aware of this, and as backup, register
their children at many schools for entrance exams. The week of entrance
examinations is one scramble after another for these parents who try to make it
to all the schools without stressing themselves and upsetting their work
timings too much. “When I went to these schools, I saw many familiar faces
doing the rounds with me,” remembers Anita.
But the parents’ stress may be the least of the
problems, since the children themselves are at risk of taking the examination
results too seriously.
Bina Gurung, founder of Bina’s Keta Keti
Pre-School, has been working with children for many years and is familiar with the
post-examination trauma that toddlers face. “I hear them telling everyone excitedly
that they will go to school XYZ,” says Bina, “but of course, not every child
does, and those who don’t become sad.”
In an effort to prepare them for alternate
possibilities, she tells them that entrance examinations are like lottery, it
is just a matter of luck. But this does not convince every child. Parents
offhandedly say that their child has failed and take the child to the next
school. But the stamp of ‘failure’ sticks on the child’s mind, sometimes
causing trauma and affecting the child’s confidence for long. Ultimately,
parents’ hunt for the ‘best ‘school in town leaves the child with the
impression of how important it is to compete and win, and not necessarily of
the importance of good education.
Instead, avoiding competitive examinations at
such an early age can help make the education system child-friendly. Suprabhat
Ghimire, President of Guardians’ Association Nepal, suggests that schools
choose some other method for admission, like maybe first-come-first-serve, which
can deflect such trauma.
In recent times, schools have also been facing
criticism from educationists who question the very point of entrance
examinations. Labeling such competitions ‘unhealthy,’ Bina goes on to state
that schools only want to take brilliant students so that they don’t have to
work too hard at teaching them. Indeed, schools should be the place to start
learning, not a place where your abilities are questioned before you even
start.
Each child has different capacities, and not all
of them should, or even can, be judged by the same standards. The priority
should be getting the best possible education for the child, but without putting
the child to pressures more than his/her capacity.
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