CHENNAI: Thinking about having a kid? Head down to whichever school you want your child to begin studies in and register for lower kindergarten, right now.
Because jokes have turned into reality and leading CBSE and ICSE schools in the city have closed registration for LKG admissions up to 2019.
Some schools are now asking parents to register for the 2020 admission season.
Think that's funny? Hundreds of parents don't think so. Because only children who have registered for that particular year in advance will be considered for admissions.
According to principals, demand for the top schools is so high and seats so limited that schools have to mandate registration in the year of birth.
“I was shocked to find out that I should have applied right after my daughter’s birth,” said one parent who went to collect application forms for his three-year-old daughter but returned disappointed.
It wasn’t this bad until last year, parents say. This registration process used to begin in December of the previous year. But steadily increasing competition has resulted in schools advancing the process by two to three years.
Take Sishya, an ICSE school in Adyar. It has already posted a ‘Registrations for LKG 2019 closed’ message on its admissions page, while adding that LKG registrations for 2020 are open.
This means parents have to register for admission right in the year of birth of the child.
Other popular schools also have similar wait lists. The Ryan International Group of Institutions in Sriperumbudur has opened registrations for Mont 1 and Mont 2 for 2018-19.
Another leading CBSE school in Neelangarai has KG registration which is preferred right after childbirth.
The secretary of Sishya, R Srinivasan says they have to begin registrations well in advance because demand for seats is very high and the number of children admitted per section is not more than 30.
Many parents, hopeful of collecting application forms, have been caught unawares.
Even schools that haven’t gone to such extremes have already closed LKG admissions.
While pictures of parents standing in long queues to collect LKG applications are trending on social media, several CBSE and ICSE schools, including the Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan School, Siruseri have declared that KG admissions are completed.