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Understanding Early Childhood Education

Prajodh Rajan, Co-Founder & CEO, EuroKids
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Prajodh Rajan, Co-Founder & CEO, EuroKids
Prajodh Rajan completed his education in Mumbai and Coimbatore and is a management graduate from the University of Madras. What started off as a project in 2001 with two pre-schools in Mumbai, EuroKids now is a network of 800+ pre-schools spread across 280 towns & cities in India and abroad under his leadership.

A Pre-School is the child’s first experience away from the parents and it’s a huge leap for both the parents as well as for the child. This is the first time that the child is separated from the comfortable and the secure environment provided by the parents. Therefore, the pre-school must be a warm, friendly, safe, hygienic environment that makes the pre-school, quite simply, a second home for the child.

At the pre-school, it is the first place where the child builds his/her self-esteem. A child learns the importance of his/her name, understands the objects in the surroundings and makes new friends. It is the perfect place to lay the child’s foundation in the formative years. The skills and knowledge that the child develops in the preschool has a great impact on his/her aptitude in the years to come. Researches on preschool education has shown that children who are moulded correctly at an early age usually have improved social skills, lesser behavioural problems and improved learning abilities.

The idea that one must create the ‘perfect pre-schooling experience’ for a child is the single biggest thought; that will create a differentiation for a preschool brand in an evolving but already competitive industry. Today with the number of preschools that have opened shop in the country, I do feel that the category will witness a phase of consolidation, reinvention and progression. Preschool brands will be challenged, and will have to reinvent their approach. They must evolve, be willing to learn and unlearn and become 100% child centric in their approach so that they become the preferred choice of the customer.

Thus, in this phase, I do feel that a preschool brand must adopt a ‘Child-First Ideology’ wherein all its initiatives have an inherent child-centric approach that will ensure that all its efforts are directed towards providing a fun learning experience. Gone are the days when parents would be content to send their children to the nearest or the most popular preschools in the neighbourhood. Today for every child, going to a reputed, well organised, and structured pre-school has become a necessity. Parents will choose that pre-school where the child’s well-being, safety needs are met and a healthy and hygienic environment with a robust structured curriculum is provided. Keeping this in mind then, it becomes imperative to create a nurturing home-like environment at the preschool. Preschools must make this transition of the child between home and school perfect by providing a holistic nurturing environment with emphasis on child development, security, cleanliness, structured curriculum, and establishing a close connection with the parents of each child so that a close bond between the home and the pre-school is created.


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