If it weren’t for the pandemic, private school managements would have completed admissions for the 2021–22 academic year by this month. However, with the academic calendar thrown into disarray, schools are still uncertain over when and how the current academic year will end.
While some top schools in the city have started conducting virtual tours of their campuses and hosting online workshops for prospective parents, most budget schools have not even started the admission process.
Lokesh Talikatte, State unit president of the Recognised Unaided Private Schools’ Association, Karnataka, said they were still unsure of how this academic year would pan out and did not want to begin the next year’s admission process. “We will first have to conduct admissions for kindergarten and class one, but these are the classes that will not begin anytime soon. We need clarity on when the vaccine will roll out before making these decisions, which is why we haven’t started the admission formalities,” he said.
Gayatri Devi, principal of Little Flower Public School, said they also had not started admissions for the 2021–22 academic year. “But we are conducting registrations so that we can inform parents about the admission process once the school management decides to begin it,” she said.
Parents, too, for the most part, are adopting a wait-and-watch approach. Schools, which are usually inundated with enquiries from prospective parents, said it was not the case this year.
According to Mansoor Ali Khan, member of the board of management of DPS Group of Schools, even the number of enquiries is low. “We have seen a 25-30% dip even in admission requests this year. But we have begun virtual tours of the campus. Parents of nursery, LKG, and UKG students are closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation and admissions are not on their mind at the moment. Many parents who are working from home at present feel that they are better off homeschooling their children who are in the lower grades,” he said.
