AHMEDABAD: Vinita Jamtani, who has been running a playschool in Satellite for seven years, has finally locked out of her dream project.
“Covid-19 pandemic has affected playschools, where toddlers would get physical and mental stimulation for overall development, the worst. Schoolchildren study online but toddlers' parents were not ready for this shift. Huge losses and a grim business forecast prompted us to call it quits,” says Jamtani.
For the past 18 months, all schools in the state either remained shut or shifted to online education. Government permission recently to allow class 8-12 students in schools too has not led to any beelines for classrooms as majority students still prefer to study from the safety of their homes.
Needless to say, the pandemic scare has practically sounded the death knell for the otherwise thriving preschool or or playschool sector where parents are highly averse to any risk of exposing their 1.5-3.5-year-olds to possible virus risk.
There are an estimated 1,500 preschools in Ahmedabad of which more than 70% have shut shop due to Covid-19, says Pathik Shah, president of Ahmedabad-chapter of Early Childhood Association and Association for Primary Education.
Firdosh Lalkaka, who runs one of the oldest preschools in the city located in Navrangpura, has shifted to online education but numbers have dwindled from 300 to merely 75. He says he can afford to suffer losses as he does not have to pay rent.
“Majority preschools which closed down were franchise-based. Cost of running a preschool from rented premises costs anywhere between Rs 10-15 lakh. With only a handful of parents ready to opt for online classes, it was not feasible for most,” says Lalkaka.
“From about 100 students, we now have only 27 preschool kids. About 70-80% playschools in Ahmedabad were run on a franchise model. They have all shut down because of the high rent involved,” says Shah who also runs a preschool in Vastrapur.
It needs mention playschools were a lucrative business pre-pandemic as most charged an average fee ranging from Rs 30,000-75,000 per annum. Some charged as much as Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh.
Experts say parents are reeling under financial crisis due to pay cuts. Going online has not worked for this category as only 15-20% parents enrolled for virtual education in this age-group which is not enough to run a full-fledged facility.
Hiral Patel, owner of a pre-school in Maninagar, says in their playgroup there were hardly any new admissions and it is just three students this year as compared to 80 prior to the Covid-19 outbreak.
"My son is two years old. I would have liked to enrol in a play school for him to play and learn. But I see no point in spending Rs 75,000 for him to sit in front of a PC," says Avani Tomar, a Maninagar resident.
