Of Schools and Of inter-linked chaos

I have generally not written about social issues in my blog so far for some reason. Recently, I have become almost a school-phobic person. This just happened when we started looking for schools to admit Nila.  It was initially hard to even believe that schools charge so much fees for an LKG kid. Then I realised that it was very much true, but when we need to face it, it is just really confusing.  My one simple question is, “Are the schools really worth paying such hefty amount?”.  We have admitted our daughter in Little Millennium, which has play group to UKG.  I thought of putting her in a bigger school for LKG but something is really preventing us to pay such hefty amount for just a kindergarten education.

I don’t mean to compare the 80’s and 90’s school education but still I feel we public have somehow  increased the number of XYZ vidhyashrams and XYZ public schools mushrooming every year.  No matter if it is Mylapore, or tambaram or even chegalpet, I find these vidhyashrams  and public schools. And yes, nobody wants to join their kid in Matriculation schools these daysbecause of this samacheer kalvi concept. Few more doubts of mine are, “What is actually happening in matriculation schools? ”, what will happen if I put my kid in a Matriculation school? Will she become totally useless?

Recently in my gym, I came to know of many  good Matric schools and CBSE schools in Tambaram, who get only moderate fees unlike the other schools who get fees around one lakh rupees.  That made me think a lot. What if I put my kid in a very normal school with normal fees. May be she will start conversing in English a bit late. I admit a school is the one which cultivates any talent in most of the kid. I am really thankful to my school, St. Antonys Girls Higher Secondary School, Mandavelli,  Chennai,  for helping me to come out of the stage fear and talk in front of the crowd. I would really like to write on that later in my blog. And yeah my school was a government -aided school where we all had equal opportunities to explore extra- curricular activities.  But the school where I joined for my 11^th and 12^th  was a matriculation school which used to produce many state rank holders and had 0 opportunities for extra -curricular activities. I would rather call it is a tutorial centre than a school. One more point I would like to tell about my Antonys school is that we had the best teachers. I still remember how our Meenakshi miss gave extra coaching to centum aspirants at her home on sundays. Also she took extra care to weak students. Can U imagine, all this happened in a government aided school. If Meenakshi miss is still there, this must still be continuing there.

Also I have this particular doubt. All these fancy vishyashrams and public schools are functioning for almost a decade. Had they given super- duper coaching in terms of education and extra- curricular activities, they must have produced super- duper candidates excelling in many arenas. Has that happened? Or I am just unaware?

My only worry is that are we paying more for a thing for which we actually need to pay less? Are we doing this  just because we are earning more? Already most of us are working in private sectors. Even government sectors have stopped pension scheme. On top of that, we have 'n' number of EMIs to be paid monthly  at attractive low interest rates. If schools grab the money in the name of fees on a monthy basis, we can neither definitely invest in our future nor in our kid’s future. I always have this nightmare of how to save money for their college fees if we spend all our monthly income to their school fees?

I am keeping my fingers crossed. Am I going to opt for a normal school or am I also going to fall as a prey to these fancy vidhyashrams? Let’s see how it goes.  

Thanks for reading :)