“In which school are your children studying?”
It’s a question parents are either happy to face or hope to evade. It depends on whether they send their children to a premium school in town or not. I certainly have a problem with that question, because I send my children “only” to a quasi government school, for reasons best known to a middle class family.
I, of course, know good parenting has little to do with affording education for children at premium schools of the world. Still my spontaneous response to the query carries a tinge of uneasiness, revealing my own disappointment with myself — as if I am Roger Federer and have lost a Wimbledon final.
But there are moments of consolation as when I realise how voiceless my friends who are parents and patrons of a particular elite school in my town are. A recent example was about tuition fees. There was a court order directing the “management schools” (as the privately run schools are known) to collect only about 75% of the usual annual tuition fee, and that too in instalments, as the pandemic affected the household incomes. However, this school quite casually increased the tuition fee and demanded that it be paid in full.
My friends fretted and fumed and then paid the amount one by one, falling in line. In my case, I was asked to pay only the fee stipulated by the government. I also had my way when it came to saving my children from the so-called online classes — the most awkward part of which was their insistence on a WhatsApp account.
I could very well confront the staff with the argument that their online classes did nothing more than extending the children’s screen time. But I was in no mood to do that. I told them, in all politeness, that I could not afford a smartphone. There the matter ended. My take on the whole thing is about the balance of power between us, the parents, and them, the schools. Wherever there is such a thing, there are better chances of a fair deal. Impressive buildings, legacy, and even great teachers, how do they matter when schools take parents for granted?
sankar@sankarg.com
