13 - 19 September 2001
Issue No.551
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 September 2001 Issue No.551 |
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Making the cut
Dena Rashed finds that parents will do anything to start their kids off on the right foot"Getting my kid into kindergarten is harder than getting a student into university," groans Osama Saad, whose son, five-year-old Mina, is ready for school. "We have to apply to no less than five or six schools -- otherwise, there is a possibility that Mina will find himself without a school to go to at the beginning of the year."
Government regulations dictate that all schools begin receiving applications as of the first of June. But the race to place your child in a good school begins way before this. Earlier this summer, I met Amal, an employee at a local banking institute who was in a frenzy trying to get her son into an "experimental school" -- government schools that teach private school curriculums and limit class size to 36. These schools are in high demand with middle-class parents as the prices, at LE160 a year, are accessible.
But as with so many parents, Amal was in a bind over school age restrictions -- one of the main hurdles in getting a child into kindergarten. Public schools admit students at the age of six, but private kindergartens start at four. With demand being what it is, schools -- and parents -- are hyper-aware of age cut-offs down to the day. As the stakes rise, parents are willing to resort to some desperate measures -- even forging their child's birth certificate.
Amal's son fell short of the school's age requirement by a mere couple of days. "Imagine, for a couple of days, he would be set back a whole year!" she exclaimed. The only course of action, she explained, was to forge her son's birth certificate. The problem is so pervasive that Amal says she was even counselled to register the date of her son's birth as a more auspicious date -- one that would help him when the time came for getting him into school. At the time, she waved away the concern, but now, she is suffering for the lack of forethought. "It costs LE500 to change a birth certificate these days," lamented Amal. "Last year, people paid only LE300 for a forged certificate."
Iman Mohamed, head of the Dokki Government Health Office (GHO) responsible for issuing birth and death certificates, flatly denies any such irregular practices. "It is impossible to forge birth certificates from our office," she told Al-Ahram Weekly. "That could only happen in remote or rural areas." The law allows a 15-day grace period for parents to register the date of birth of their child with the GHO, Mohamed explained. If they are late, they incur a fine ranging from LE1 to LE100. But the fine is minimal given the possible repercussions and some argue that the special committee responsible for determining a baby's age (literally, the "toothing committee") can be swayed if the price is right.
Coughing up the cash for a forged birth certificate is not the end of the story, however, as school officials are aware of the game. Mekia Zakaria, headmistress of the Gawad Hosny experimental school in Shubra, explained that "each year we have a specialist who checks all the birth certificates and rejects those that look dubious, referring them back to the GHO."
"It is true that we face a lot of pressure to accept more children in kindergarten, but we only accept those who are over five years and 23 days," Zakaria added. Other schools, she noted, accept children who are over five years and 11 months.
Why the desperate measures to make the cut-off? A child who starts kindergarten at the age of six will graduate from university at the age of 24 or 25 -- as opposed to the "normal" graduation age of 21 or 22. "When is my son going to start a life and get a job?" says Amal, listing the potential problems her son will face in an increasingly competitive and restrictive job market.
But this is not how officials see it. "What is wrong with accepting children at the age of six in kindergarten? Why rush the kids?" asks Mohamed El-Gamil, chief of the educational department of Al-Sahel, in Shubra district. And so the deadlock between parents and policy makers continues.
Even if your child is blessed with the right birthday, the high demand for school seats means that he or she may still face considerable difficulty finding a place in school as soon as they are ready for it. "My daughter was only admitted into kindergarten in a private school when she was five and half years old, and that means she will be older than most others in her class," remarked Iman Said, a mother of seven.
Parents bent on sending their children to an exclusive private school, no matter the cost, are still forced to plan well ahead of time. "I have been preparing my daughter for school ever since she turned two," explained Reham Adel, the mother of four- year-old Amira. Adel had set her sights on the German school, but getting in is no easy matter. After a series of intense interviews over several days, Amira was eventually turned down. Adel, however, remains hopeful. "My daughter has become an expert with school interviews, after having taken the hardest and longest of these interviews at the German school," she noted proudly.
One mother, who spoke to the Weeklyon condition of anonymity out of fear that her children might be denied a place should school boards read this article, complained that kindergarten interviews have become too stressful for children. "I helped my son memorise the English alphabet and the numbers -- but isn't that a bit much? After all, this is only kindergarten," she said. "Where are these kids going anyway -- to heaven?"
At the Child Home private school, children are only interviewed to ensure that they are ready and fit to start school. Vivian El-Rashidi, the school's headmistress, agrees with Saad, noting that some schools overburden parents and children with long and stressful interviews. She explained, however, that "We only make this kind of effort for the sake of the children."
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