Parents are becoming increasingly selective when it comes to their children’s education. One thousand days ago, however, the focus was securing admission into a medical or engineering college.

These days the admission battle begins at the pre-school level. Parents are queuing up for their toddlers, and brand-name schools are all the rage. Pradeep Hedaoo, additional commissioner of income tax and a parent, says, “Earlier, parents were ignorant of the positive results of early learning. But it is an accepted formula now. Children have better grasping power, and sending my child to a class only improves his abilities.”

Hedaoo’s son is just a year old, but he can already tell the difference between a private car and a taxi and pronounce words that would be considered difficult for a child of his age. He has been learning these words since he was six months old. Hedaoo had enrolled his son in a mother-toddler programme at MET Rishikul Vidyalaya.

The course is primarily for six-montholds. The institution, in Bandra, teaches children basic addition and subtraction with the help of dot cards, free play, rolling, painting, pottery, identifying textures, etc.

In recent years the demand for preschools has grown, as nuclear families replace joint families. With both parents working, many households rely on pre-schools to teach their children in their absence. Pre-schooling, once synonymous with fun and frolic, is now taking the lead in helping children to socialise.

“I am unable to help my child socialise with outsiders,” says Rathi Nair, a resident of Powai, whose child attends Kidzee. “He gets very aggressive when people try to take away his possessions. I thought a programme [like the mother-toddler] will help me correct his habits.” There are about 50,000 private schools across India. Only a small number of large pre-school franchises exist, with Eurokids being the most well-known. Eurokids runs over 200 pre-schools, with the number rising over the past three years. Tree House pre-school began with two schools in 2005 and today boasts of more than 25 centres across the city.

One market study, conducted by Kangaroo Kids Education Limited (KKEL), has found that education is now seen as a fundamental requirement for children to survive and early entry into structured learning is being increasingly desired.

According to Lina Ashar, KKEL director, “Traditionally parents, grandparents, and the home environment provided learning. Pre-schools always existed, but in the past three years they have become more structured with research and professional organisations getting involved in the activity.”

Yet, she says, the situation has worsened with brand-building and marketing overriding research and curriculum. In the next three years, she says, “more and more players” will get involved in the ‘industry’. “Parents will get to make informed choices rather than accept a pre-school because no other option exists,” she says.

Even Mahesh Tutorials, a leading private coaching class, has diversified into pre-schools and day-care centres, the first of which is being set up at Koparkhairane. Narayanan Iyer, one of the directors, says, “We provide what people want. We want to cater to the needs of working parents too.”

The boom will gain momentum in the next 1,000 days. As Ashar puts it, “I see opportunities for getting involved in activities not conventionally offered, something which would help kids develop critical thinking and entrepreneurship.”

A market plan compiled by a preschool chain says, “There are about 350 million school-age children in India with 70 million being below the age of five years and only 40 per cent of these currently enrolled. This combined with a birth rate of 25 million per annum creates a significant and continuing demand for pre-school education.” Parents, on the other hand, are increasingly conscious of their child’s education in a branded school. There are specialised tuitions meant to train the children for ‘interviews’ to secure admissions in upmarket schools.

As one parent, Aarti Shah, says, “As long as these pre-schools and playgroups come out with innovative ideas to teach young kids, the industry is bound to flourish.”