When the school seven-year-old Danush goes to, announced that it would be shifting to a new campus in the coming academic year, the boy’s parents took the news in their stride. Without wasting any time, they got down to searching for a home not too far from Navalur, where the institution was shifting from Kotturpuram.
“Last December, we moved from Nandambakkam to Uthandi. Periodic updates from the school about the change in location made things easy,” says Veena Jayachandran, Dhanush’s mother.
When greeted with such an announcement, most parents are not as unruffled as Dhanush’s. For, in most cases, children take time to acclimatise themselves to a new environment, especially if the old one is markedly different in character. The process requires considerable support from school authorities and parents.
Last month, parents of kindergarten students of an international school in Saidapet were rattled when the management announced that its KG sections were being shifted to the main campus in Perungudi.
“Only in the last academic year, the school shifted from Taramani to Perungudi campus and the shift was well-planned. Parents were informed well in advance so that they could take their decisions on time. The KG campus however continued to function at Saidapet. In the absence of official updates, the parents continued to believe that the KG sections would be shifted to Perungudi only in 2018,” says a parent, adding that the news came too late in the day for many parents. They could not pull their wards out of the school, as they had paid the fee.
Bigger campuses
With the expansion of city, huge parcels of land are available within the urban space. As a result, many educational institutions are shifting their campuses to areas that are newly added to the Corporation and those beyond, drawn by the prospect of having bigger campuses.
KC High School is getting ready to move to a bigger campus at Olympia Panache, a gated community in Navalur, in October-November, 2017. Since December 2016, its has been updating parents about the construction of the school buildings in the new location, through its website. It has even held a town hall meeting with parents to get them prepared for the change. Last week, it conducted an open house for parents at its new campus.
The School KFI is relocating from Adyar to Thazhambur. A few educational institutions on Rajiv Gandhi Salai are separating their junior and senior campus.
In a mailer to parents, APL Global School at Okkiyam-Thoraipakkam informed parents that its elementary section (pre-kg to grade II) will be functioning from a new campus off the Thoraipakkam-Pallavaram Radial Road from June.
Similarly, BVM Global at Perungudi is shifting its junior classes to a new premises on Rajiv Nagar.
Re-location comes with a set of challenges for schools and parents. For instance, KC High Schools is expecting a dip in strength.
“At least 40 per cent of the students might not be moving with us because of the distance, but we are prepared for that. During the exit interviews that we conducted, many parents told us that they would try elsewhere for a year,” says Valli Subbiah, founder of the school. However, the school is confident of getting new students.
