Professionalisation of the pre-school sector

One of the curious anomalies of indian education is that while tertiary and higher education are over-controlled and regulated by government and its agencies such as UGC, AICTE, Medical Council of India etc, the pre-school sector is completely unregulated. Consequently thousands of nurseries and pre-schools for children as young as three years have been started in garages, garden sheds and urban apartments.Though most urban pre-schools — in effect to socialise children from an early age — claim to deliver the Montessori and other play-way pedagogies, they tend to be staffed by under-trained teachers, and the preliminary skills and love of learning which they promise to inculcate in tiny tots is a matter of luck and conjecture. Yet with educator and parent communities becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of pre-school education, and given that it’s completely free of government interference, it’s hardly surprising that education entrepreneurs in India and abroad are entering this sector in a big way. For instance, the Zee Group, a big name in sophisticated wrapping foils, television and the media, has quickly established a nationwide 600-strong chain of Kidzee pre-schools under the franchise model.
Likewise, Australia-educated, Mumbai-based edupreneur Lina Asher has also promoted the 36-strong Kangaroo Kids chain of pre-schools countrywide, under the franchise model. Moreover according to the grapevine, the Mumbai-based Ryan Group of Institutions which runs India’s largest chain of privately-owned K-12 schools (240), is poised to enter pre-school education in a big way.