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You are not wrong.
(a) Almost all parents wants their children to go to The Best School and tend to go overboard and/ or overlook the stress-levels on their wards
(b) Many parents don't shift their home close to the school and the children end-up, spending hours on the road (I know a child, who spends 3+ hours on the road everyday; because the parents cannot shift their home close to the school)
(c) And the extra-classes, tuition-hours only add to the stress-levels.

My daughter used to spend a good hour or two with her friends (neighbour's children), everyday till 2021 holidays. Come 2022 and her friends go straight to tuition after school and my daughter no longer connects with them!

Your observation is spot on, the issue is less to do with schools and more to do with parents. Aspirations of parents are imposed on the kids which is true like you said in Tier 1-2 towns (atleast).

The worst however are parents in double income affluent households who inspite of having the means provide some of the worst environments- comfortable instead of nurturing, scholastic excellence instead of learning, "piano" classes instead of free play, English instead of mother tongue.... My list could go on.

I consider my generation as the weakest generation of parents which is actually a missed opportunity. There are anecdotal cases which are contrary to what I said, but the majority of what I said is unfortunately true.

Hi All,

Need suggestions. I am in a conundrum.

India's new education policy (NEP2020) mandates that the child has to be 6 years for getting admission to 1st standard. My daughter is july born and completed her pre-kg this year. Her LKG will be from june 2023. In June '25 she will be 5 Years 10 Months 20 Days, which will be less than 6 years by ~1.5 months.

Earlier this week I read an article in news paper that Karnataka will start following this from 2024 onwards. Not all states have agreed to implement this. When I checked with the school principal, she said that it will not impact for the chidren who are already enrolled in the school (pre-KG/LKG/UKG) - which I dont believe. Since LKG/UKG are optional in nature. Pricincipal might have told keeping cash flow (read fees) in mind.

I strongly feel this policy is rigid in nature. Imagine a kid born on may 31st gets admitted, and a kid born a day later on june 1 has to wait 1 year to join school. They should have given atleast 2 or 3 months of buffer in age to get admission. I feel this is kind of imposition without proper consultation of general public. Also, this has monitory impact as these days even LKG/UKG expenses goes upward of a lakh which is not a small amount for common people.

I am worried that my kid will be forced repeat UKG. Can't imagine her doing the same things for 1 more year (same rhymes, same books, same activities). This might have a negative impact on her education also. She may lose interest in school altogether. So what options do I have now?

1. Continue her in LKG/UKG and see what happens during 2025 when she has to go to 1st standard. Hoping govt will relax the age condition by 2-3 months.
   
2. Keep her home this year and enroll her in LKG next year. So that she starts 1st standard in 2026 June.

Happy to hear your thoughts.

cheers
HTC

I am also in a similar situation with my younger kid who will be studying LKG coming academic year but have to defer it due to NEP criteria and have to either

Repeat Nursery/PreKG once again.
(or)
Study LKG or UKG twice before becoming eligible for 1st standard as per NEP.

I will not trust the school's interpretation on NEP and how they will implement it. They can say whatever they want right now and can renege and simply say that we have to repeat an academic year before the kid is eligible for 1st standard in turn profiting nicely on an extra year's worth exorbitant LKG/UKG fee.

My final take is to follow exactly what NEP mandates as age of eligibility criteria by the time kid is eligible for 1st standard.

You need to understand that whatever dates the government put, there will be hundreds of kids who miss it by 1 day, 1 week, 1 month. So why would they relax by 2-3 months? This has been the case ages ago and will continue to be for ages to come.

40 years back in primary school, I had friends in my class who were 11 months older to me. I just scraped through

I feel it is better to be older than the cut off age when seeking school admission. You can cope better, cognitive skills are more developed and likely to translate into a more confident way to go about life. The downside is that you might be paying school fees for an extra year but I guess you can see it as just an yearly expense.

My nephew who is born in August is repeating his nursery this year as no school was ready to admit him in LKG citing the NEP.

The school where he went to for nursery was ready to promote him to LKG but we felt it is better to repeat nursery than being forced to repeat UKG in 2 yrs time.

Regarding the NEP policy, I was told by many schools (NPS, DPS, Vibgyor, Sherwood high, Greenwood high to name a few) that for kids who are already in the academic system i.e., enrolled into Nursery, LKG or UKG they can proceed to 1st standard even if they are short on 6 years. But for new admissions to Nursery from this academic year (2023-24) , age criteria will be strictly followed.

My elder daughter will be 5 years 10 months next year but will be moving into 1st standard while for younger one they ensured that she is 6 years by the time she moves into 1st standard and only then enrolled her to Nursery.

Read this article from TOI here for some additional context on the age criteria changes. Screenshot of the important bits from the article below

We had a similar situation a decade back while admitting my kid to 1st Std in an school (ICSE), she was in a Montessori before that.

During the admission process, since we insisted on putting her in Std 1, the school did an "interview" of the kid and gave the option to admit her to 1st Std with an undertaking that if there are objections on the age by the ICSE board during her 10th Std, we should take the responsibility, the other option being to repeat UKG.

At that time we had similar concerns that you have expressed.
One thing clear in our mind was repeating a year while being a tiny tot would not even be noticed, while having to sit out for one year in 10th Std would be enormously stressful and was simply not worth the chance.

In our case, since this was a shift to a new school, my kid did not even notice the repetition since this was with a new set of classmates & teachers (and teaching method, the Montessori was more relaxed I suppose).

Bottomline is repeating a year will not impact the kid's future prospects - of course this will reduce the window for writing some competitive exams, but not worth the risk of having the kid sit out a year during their 10th. The additional benefit would be that till atleast middle school, they would not get dwarfed in physical activities out due to being underage.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...le66759186.ece.

Department of School education has instructed to follow the NEP admission age from 2024 academic year.

My child did not get admission to the most preferred school in my locality because she was ,it seems, 2 weeks overage.

Had my child been 1 year younger (which she was last year and hence eligible for the admission to Nursery), she would have been exactly 5 years and 5 months old at the time of joining 1st. I realized this last year and got her admitted to Playgroup and not Nursery. Now that she will be the correct age as per the article, she is not eligible as per school rules. Go figure.

I am kind of happy that my child will not paying an exorbitant fees to go to this senseless school. She got admission in the other school in our township (Next door from the senseless one) and I just came back from the orientation and I am happy with what I saw.

^
Great parents + dumb school is a better combination than irresponsible parents + amazing school.

• No difference in school timings.
• Homework, chart-model work were there in 1980s.
• 3+ hour commute is an overkill. Even office going folk don't commute that much. My kids have been doing 25-40 minute school van ride from day 1.
• IB has the least workload. Even that ramps up in grade 8.
• 5-6 am is when the parents of school going kids wake up. Not the kids themselves. Mine wake around 640 am.

When NEP 2020 has brought KG as part of the umbrella. What's the point in the article quoting the age for grade 1? Shouldn't it be the age criteria for PreKG. And there is no point in the article quoting KV. KV's academic calendar is July-May no?

Amen to that. My son started a year late (he was 6 years 7 months entering grade 1) and we are glad we did that. More than money, managing hyperactive children an extra year is the challenge :D

Can confirm on NEP. Atleast 3 schools that we visited and spoke to mentioned about the circular they have received from DDPI.

Also, there is no relaxation period. Not even a day. We met a parent whose kid was born on June 3. As the rule says, should have completed 6 years as on June 1, the kid was not given admission. I felt though this decision is harsh, it will balance out eventually as all kids fall under the same umbrella. Unless the government does a U-turn after few years.

I am currently in the middle of my IBDP2 (Grade 12 exams), and I have been studying in IB since Grade 9 so I feel I am fit to answer this question.

So the board exams happen in the month of May for Grade 10, and for Grade 12 they start end of April and end by the 3rd week of May.

Now Grade 6-10 fall under MYP Curriculum of IB, which has e-assessments, so those exams happen on laptops and are not hand written. MYP also has portfolio subjects such as Music, Visual Arts, PHE and Design, for which projects are to be made and submitted before hand, alongside a Personal Project. These submissions generally done by January-February so that the student has enough time to prepare for the mock exams(pre-boards) and then the finals.

Now enter the DP Curriculum for Grade 11 and 12. Things are different. Exams are handwritten, and there is an academic project for every subject, aside from Language Acquisition. There is also a subject called Theory of Knowledge, which is basically like philosophy, and then there is an Extended Essay, which is a 4000 word academic research work in one of your Higher Level (HL) subject.

So to get the IB Diploma, a student must be doing 3 subjects at standard level, and 3 at HL, alongside passing in TOK and EE, and fulfilling the CAS(creativity, activity and service) requirements.

Theory of Knowledge has 2 main components - an Exhibition that happens at the end of year 1, and an Essay which the student has to write once IB releases the prompts for that session, which usually happens towards first week of September in year 2.

The extended essay, TOK and Internal Assessments of each subject are usually submitted by mid-march.

If someone is taking visual arts, then there is a comparative study between artists, and a visual arts exhibition, now I don't know much about VA because I didn't take it, but my best friend did so I can ask them for details if required. The comparative essay is also submitted in march, and the exhibition takes place end of march in year 2, where the students showcase the artwork they have created in the course of their DP VA programme with a set theme and rationale for curation.

IB academic year usually starts in August and ends end of May or in first week of June.

MYP also allows students to use calculator, and DP, yes we are allowed using calculator for almost all subjects. For Maths, there are 2 different types, Application and Analysis(which has one paper where calculator is not allowed to be used), and Application and Interpretation(where calculator can be used in all papers). Calculator is also allowed for other subjects like Business Management, Economics and the Sciences.

As for future in competitive exams, IB is fit for the SAT, however not so much for the common competitive exams taken in India, as the board exams end late and there is little to no time for students to prepare for them, and IB does require a lot of hard work and studying, saying from experience, especially in Grades 11 and 12.

Also attaching the exam schedules for MYP(grade 10) and DP(grade 12) for this year so you can get an idea. Note: Not everyone has to take all subjects.



If anyone needs more details or any tips regarding the IB MYP or DP programme, please feel free to get in touch. I also have a sister studying in PYP so I have quite a bit of idea about PYP as well