In this episode of the EdexLive Podcast by The New Indian Express, we sit down with Dr. Swati Popat Vats, President of the Early Childhood Association, international speaker, and one of India’s most respected voices in early childhood education.
From play-based learning, brain development, and parenting myths, to policy reforms, storytelling as pedagogy, and the dangers of overexposure to gadgets, Dr. Swati shares decades of wisdom that every parent, teacher, and policymaker should hear.
If you’ve ever wondered what truly lays the foundation for raising curious, resilient, and happy children, this conversation will change how you think about the early years.
Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more thought-provoking conversations on education, parenting, and change-making.
Dr Swati Popat Vats is the President of the Early Childhood Association, an international speaker, author, and passionate advocate for children, teachers, and parents. With decades of experience, Dr Swati Vats has been at the forefront of reimagining how India views the first six years of life, from play-based learning to policy change.
In this conversation, we’ll dive into her journey, the myths she wants to bust about early education, and her vision for raising happy, curious, and resilient children.
Key Takeaway:
1. The Early Years Shape the Human Brain
Dr Swati emphasises that 90% of brain development occurs before a child turns six, making early childhood education the most critical phase in life. What children experience in these foundational years builds the structure for how they think, learn, and relate to the world later?
According to her, investing in early education isn’t just good schooling—it’s nation-building.
As she beautifully puts it, “It’s better to build strong children than to repair broken youth.”
2. Teachers Are Not Babysitters—they’re Brain Builders
When a principal once dismissed early educators as “Kaka Susu teachers” (babysitters), it fuelled Dr Swati’s lifelong mission to redefine the identity of early childhood teachers.
She argues that preschool educators literally shape the architecture of the brain — the foundation upon which all future learning rests.
“If we didn’t build those brains, what would others teach?”
She encourages teachers to proudly call themselves “brain builders” — a title that recognizes their real influence on a child’s future.
3. Reforming India’s Education from the Ground Up
If Dr Swati could redesign India’s early childhood system, she would start with three crucial reforms:
· Teacher Education: Introduce neuroscience and brain development into teacher training.
· Parent Education: Help parents understand the ‘why’ behind modern learning methods.
· Equity in Education: Bridge the gap between private and government schools so every child, regardless of background, gets quality care and learning.
Her vision is for India’s children — across all schools — to have equal opportunities to thrive, learn, and grow.
4. Play Is Not Leisure; it’s the Engine of Learning
Contrary to the obsession with marks and grades, Dr Swati insists that play is the most powerful tool for learning. Quoting Einstein, she reminds us that play is “the highest form of research.”
She warns against grading and comparing children too early, explaining that such practices damage self-esteem during a critical stage of emotional development.
“The only race children need to be in is the human race.”
5. India’s Ancient Wisdom Already Understood Child Development
Drawing from the Panchakosha philosophy mentioned in India’s National Curriculum Framework (NCF), Dr Swati highlights how ancient Indian knowledge mirrors modern neuroscience.
Each “kosha” represents a layer of growth — physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual — showing that India always had a holistic understanding of learning long before the West coined these ideas.
She argues that India’s indigenous wisdom—like storytelling, sensory play, and mindfulness—must take its rightful place on the global education stage.
6. Storytelling: The Brain’s Natural Classroom
Stories, Dr Swati explains, are not just entertainment — they’re the oldest and most powerful form of teaching. Inspired by the early 20th-century educator Gijubhai Badheka, she describes how storytelling improves children’s memory, empathy, and impulse control.
In her words,
“When we tell stories, we don’t just engage children—we light up their brains.”
From the ancient Panchatantra to today’s classrooms, storytelling remains an essential bridge between emotion, imagination, and intellect.
7. The Power of Parent-School Collaboration
Dr Swati advocates for stronger partnerships between schools and parents, built on transparency and respect. Parents should understand what they’re paying for and what outcomes to expect, while schools must welcome parents as partners rather than outsiders.
This two-way relationship, she says, is what transforms education from routine instruction into shared growth.
8. Tech vs. Touch: Finding the Human Balance
With screens everywhere, Dr Swati stresses that technology should never replace human connection.
She references the “serve and return” concept from Harvard’s Centre on the Developing Child — real learning happens when a child interacts and receives a response.
“AI can serve information, but it can’t return empathy.”
Instead of banning gadgets, she recommends teaching children digital discipline, such as “cell phone agreements” and healthy screen-time practices.
9. How India Can Lead the World in Early Education
Dr Swati believes India has the cultural and philosophical foundation to become a global leader in early education.
While Western systems excel in research and branding, India holds timeless wisdom rooted in emotional and ethical learning.
“The West may have frameworks, but we have the soul of education.”
To truly lead, India must blend its ancient understanding with modern research and confidence — packaging its practices with global clarity.
10. The Dosa Philosophy of Education
When asked which Indian dish best represents her, Dr Swati chose the dosa — crisp, wholesome, versatile, and satisfying to all the senses.
She explains that a dosa may look large but is light, textured, and flexible — much like how education should nourish every sense of a child, without overwhelming them.
“Like a dosa, education should satisfy all the senses — aroma, texture, and joy.
Nicholas (Host): You are often called the Voice of Early Childhood Education in India. So looking back, what drew you first to this field and what has kept you so passionately committed to this endeavour?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): I think, you know, all young children, when they are babies, toddlers, they play teacher, teacher.
I took it seriously and I said, I want to become a teacher, and that's exactly what I did. So even from childhood, I knew I wanted to become a teacher. But yes, when I did my B.Ed, I took the decision that I don't want to teach the older children. I want to teach the younger ones. Because that's where change was required in our country.
And then I read up a lot about people like Gijubhai Badheka. He's one of the foremost educators in our country. In 1920, he started a revolution when it came to early childhood education or story pedagogy. And that inspired me further, and I think now after 35 years in education, I have always stuck around for early years because we still need voices to support early years in our country.
Nicholas (Host): Was there a defining moment in your career, perhaps with like a child, a teacher, or a parent, that shaped your philosophy and still reminds you today why this work matters?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): Actually, yeah. One of the principals that I worked under as a teacher, she referred to early childhood teachers as "Kaka Susu teachers," which means you all are just babysitters. And that shook me and it made me feel, no, I not only need to change this idea about what early childhood teachers are all about, but inspire teachers also to believe in themselves, and that's why if you see, I always tell teachers, call yourself "brain builders," don't call yourself teachers. You're not teachers, right? You build the brains, which others teach, If you did not build those brains, others wouldn't be able to teach them.
So, you know, in our country, we respect secondary school teachers or senior or professors, elementary school teachers, but we kind of say, you are a pre-primary teacher. What do you do? So that needs to be brought back—that actually it's them who build the brains, so that you can teach later on.
Nicholas (Host): So neuroscience shows that 90% of brain development happens before the age of six. If you could redesign India's early childhood policies, what would be the three things that you would change first?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): Number one, I would change teacher education. We are not teaching our teachers in any qualification course about the brain. So whether you see the B.Ed or the ECCED or the NCTE or whatever, whatever courses a nursery teacher's training, Montessori course, we don't talk to them about understanding how a child's brain develops.
That should be the first change. Teach them what is the brain, because if they understand the brain, they will understand the child; if they understand the brain, they would be able to understand parenting and guide parents in it. So the second change would be parent education. We are not focused on that. We keep talking about changing curriculum, changing pedagogy, but take the parents along, unless you don't explain to them why these changes, they're not going to be supportive. And then it's going to be school and parents like this, which is happening most of the time.
And number three, I think the government needs to treat government schools and private schools equally.
So you can't bring in regulations for private schools and not have those same quality at your government schools. Children are children, they are all the citizens of our country, so you need to upgrade the quality of care education, teacher training resources in your government school so that those children—I think 80% of the children in our country study in our government schools, and we should be proud of our government schools if we only upgrade them, it is required.
Nicholas (Host): What do you believe are the most important foundations that should be laid in the first five years of a child’s life beyond just academics?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): You know, in our New Education Policy, which came out in 2020 and the NCF, which came out in 2022, it talks about "Panchakosha" and I think that kind of defines the entire foundation that you have to give to children. It talks about ‘Annamayakosha’ is your physical development. ‘Pranamayakosha’ is your internal development, so which means your breathing, your ability to understand how you are feeling, etc.
Then you have Manomaya kosha, which means your social, emotional, and ethical development.
Then it comes to Anandmaiya kosha, and in the middle there is Vijnanamaya kosha, which means your cognitive development.
So it's so beautifully given and we constantly talk about what should be taught in the early years, what should be the curriculum?
Look at the Panchakosha. It guides you.
Let's start with the physical development. Go to the emotional, then go to the cognitive, and then you'll have bliss. Bliss means happiness in learning and in life.
Actually this takes care of everything that should be in a curriculum, but it think we are very global oriented.
Nicholas (Host): Across India, many parents still prioritise marks over curiosity and play. So what would you say to an anxious parent who worries play-based learning might make their child fall behind?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): So Einstein said, and Piaget also repeated it, they said, play is the engine of learning. So if you want learning in your child, if learning is the train that you want your child to get on, then the engine is play.
If you're going to remove the engine, how is the train going to move forward?
So that is one of the most important things, and I think the NCF and the new NEP talks about no grades, no marks, no percentages, which is a very good change.
It's fine to label children, grade children later on when they can understand it, but in the early stages, children go through a very important stage called self-esteem development.
At that age, if you're going to compare one child to another, you are going to hurt that child's self-esteem.
And that once hurt will not give that child the confidence, the ability to concentrate because imagine if I were to just now tell you, oh, you're not looking that good or you're not sounding that good, it somewhere crushes you.
Even as an adult, imagine doing it to a child—that he's first, you're second, you're third. So at a time when their self-esteem is being built, we shouldn't be having grades and marks and comparisons. I always say the only race children need to be in is the human race.
You want to have a competition, research says till the age of six, children have not yet understood social development. So which means your comparison, your competition cannot come before the age of six. It can come only after the age of six. So if you understand this, explain it to parents. I have about 45,000 parents under me in the Podar group.
When you explain to them, they understand it. I think we are not explaining kids to parents.
Nicholas (Host): The child's brain, the perception of self-esteem starts before the age of six already?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): Yes, yes. At the age of two, the child is going through the, I, me, myself stage, it's called the egocentric stage.
So we say ego, you know, I would tell you you're very egocentric and we say it as a bad word. But Jean Piaget, who was the father of cognitive development, he explained egocentrism in children—that for them, they're just learning their self-identity, and when I am just understanding my self-identity, I need to now first concentrate on my needs. I need to understand myself because if I don't understand it, how are you expecting me to share? That means I have to take care of somebody else's need, but my needs have not yet been taken care of.
So when you understand these stages and you explain it to a parent, that why you see a lot of parents say, "I want to put my child in a preschool so that he learns to share." Our children are not at the stage of sharing. They are at the stage of parallel play.
Parallel play means you play there, I will play here, but don't expect me to share. The minute you will share, I'll start hitting you. And then they say, oh, children are not behaving, but you're not understanding their stage of development.
It's an egocentrism stage, So this is where I say, when I said qualification, our teachers don't know Piaget’s cognitive stages of development, parents don't know. So then, if you are not going to explain it to both of them, they're going to do the wrong things to children.
Our children are going to grow up with a lack of self-esteem and lack of self-esteem is extremely bad in children. Imagine having a teenager who has no confidence in himself and that's what we are doing.
There is a very important saying, I think by Benjamin Franklin. It says it's important to invest in children rather than repair broken youth and that's what we're doing.
Our teenagers are committing suicide. Our teenagers are giving up and then we're paying attention to them. But where did it all start?
It started in early childhood. It kept building on, building on, building on, till this child gave up. Because by when you are a teenager, you rebel. "I don't want to take any more of this now."
So it all starts in the early years. So let's build good, strong children rather than repair broken youth.
Nicholas (Host): With so many new age schools branding themselves as progressive and innovative, what should parents actually look for in a preschool or any early years education institution beyond glossy brochures?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): See, I would say, glossy classrooms, air-conditioned are not going to make a difference in your child's life. What makes a difference in your child's life is the teacher who’s going to take care of your child, the resources that the school has for your child. Nowadays, if you go to schools, they mostly have all these plastic toys.
Now, if you touch plastic and you touch glass, or you touch stone or you touch wood, it's a sensory feeling. The more the human body gets sensory feeling, the better it becomes but if you're going to touch plastic all day long, you are going to become very… you know, not bothered it doesn't touch you in any way. So, resources matter, teacher matters, and what is their philosophy—that matters. As you said, using the word progressive is not going to help if all the practices you are doing in the classroom are all like, this is how all do. It doesn't work like that.
You need teachers who understand what they are doing. So like this conference today, Kai Preschool has organized it.
It says transforming early year’s education. And if you go to KAI and if you visit the place, you will see a complete transformation of what a school looks like. There will be more outdoor space. I'm not only saying playground is an outdoor space, it's more about making children to do some activities in the classroom and some activities outside.
Everything is not about just scooping them up in a classroom, making them sit at a table and chair just because you've invested so much in that furniture.
It’s about making them move around, you know, that's very important.
We want children to sit and read, sit and write, sit and learn.
But if you see the total physical response theory, it's called the TPR, 98% of the stimulation of the brain comes from the movement of the spine.
Let's just think of this sentence: That my 98% stimulation of the brain comes from the movement of my spine. What's my spine doing throughout the day in school?
Nicholas (Host): Sitting. Oh wow. Fascinating. So storytelling, as we saw earlier, also has always been a big part of your, central to your advocacy. So why do you see it as such a powerful pedagogical tool and what impact does it have on a child's development?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): So, I got inspired with storytelling for two reasons. Number one, Gijubhai Badheka, he's the country's pioneer, but not many people know about him.
He started teaching through stories for every age group, not only early years, even elementary school he started teaching through stories and that's when I started understanding research, that what do stories do to the brain?
And I realized that stories actually light up a child's brain and then I realized why we have the Panchatantra.
Do you know Panchatantra was written by Vishnu Sharma?
He was a teacher, who was called by a King to teach his five sons who were extremely naughty, extremely not focused on anything. Vishnu Sharma taught them everything about life skills, logic, through stories and that collection is called the Panchatantra.
So which means we have an ancient philosophy of storytelling as education, again, pushed by Gijubhai Badheka, and now neuroscience proves it that whether it is perspective taking, communication skills, holding memory, you know, one of the games that Gijubhai Badheka used to play in his class, he would tell a story and not end it. He would stop and say, "Now I'll end this tomorrow."
Now, imagine what children have to do till tomorrow.
A, they have to wait—so that's impulse control.
B, I have to remember what was told yesterday—holding memory, because he's going to continue from where he stopped. He's not going to revise that.
So think of the cognitive skills being built by a story.
So it's not just about storytelling, it's about how you use it to build the brain and you and I also—don't we like to watch OTT series, movies? Why? Because there's a story, so it actually is something very human.
Emotions are the foundation of a human being. So we connect to stories. So why not stories in education?
Nicholas (Host): What would you say are the biggest challenges facing early childhood education in India today? And what structural reforms, beyond what you mentioned already, would you recommend as like the first line of change?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): So I would support places like KAI, who have recently launched their KAI Circle, which is qualifications for teachers, affordable qualifications for teachers, which are global.
That's your paradigm shift that's required, you need to have a lot of in-service training.
You can't expect a teacher to come with knowledge and then only keep on using that knowledge—the world is changing almost every day, you have AI now.
How will early childhood teachers use AI? How are they using it for early years?
You need to keep on changing. You need to give professional development to them.
2. We need to remember that it takes a village to raise a child. So what's that village? That village is a teacher. That village is a parent, and the village is the publisher who's supplying books to preschools. Now, if these three are not aligned—not on the same page—then the poor teacher is trying to convince the parent about something, but the parent believes the publisher because it's there in a book. But you as a teacher are telling me, "No, this is not good for my child."
Then why is it in a book?
So till you don't bring these three together as aligned—and that's what the Early Childhood Association is doing.
We do quality audits, not only of schools, but of publishing houses and their books, so that we are able to tell them, this is not developmentally appropriate, this shouldn't be there in a four-year-old's book, this shouldn't be there in a five-year-old book—like that.
So a paradigm shift will only come when these three stakeholders come together.
Nicholas (Host): You often speak about blending traditional wisdom with modern science. Could you share an example where Indian cultural practices beautifully align with neuroscience?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): Neuroscience is all about your senses. Your hands, your feet are all connected to your brain stimulation.
So a child—let's take for example—a child born anywhere in the world is born with the same number of neurons.
Neurons are these dots in your brain, so when a child is born, these neurons are not connected. They're just neurons.
The minute I have an interaction with a baby, one of his neurons gets connected. So the more you connect with a child, the more you attend to a child, the more you talk to a child, the more the child touches something, connections start being formed, and that becomes the seat of your intelligence, which means sensory stimulation, language stimulation, communicative stimulation.
Where is all that in our modern families, you know? That is part of our culture. We used to have lullabies for children—who's singing our lullabies for us now? AI
Exactly, exactly. So it lacks that human touch. And that's why you see, if you're having automated things looking after a child, your child's brain is going to go on auto mode. It's not going to be human.
We cannot use artificial intelligence in rearing children because we have to first imbibe in them human intelligence.
Human intelligence is not given, then I will behave like an artificial person. I will have no emotions. I will have no empathy.
So it's very important—our culture talks about talking to children. Our culture talks about singing to children. Our culture talks about different play items.
You see wooden shells, jute, all made up, and are sensory, our culture talks about stories, so all that is connected to brain connections. Now neuroscience has proven it that I need stimulation for my neurons to get connected, and that can only happen with all these.
Nicholas (Host): What would you say to the parents or anybody who says or suggests that using AI or these kinds of things provide more interaction than perhaps an adult is able to provide?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): It's a one-sided interaction. So, Harvard Institute of Developing Child, which does a lot of research in how the child's brain develops, talks about serve and return interactions.
It's a very common word, anybody can Google it—it's called Serve and Return.
So it's like a tennis match. I throw a ball at you, you will return it.
Then only it becomes a game. What if I throw a ball at you and you run away?
That's not a game, so in human interactions, you need serve and return.
If I'm watching television, it's not serve and return. It's the television talking to me; I'm not doing any talking back.
So AI, if you're going to use it, becomes a one-sided conversation, which is not going to help children thrive.
They need that human interaction for the serve-and-return interaction.
Otherwise, you will have children who won't know when somebody's talking to them to have eye contact or when somebody's talking to them, "I have to wait for my turn."
They will interrupt, they won't listen, and those practices are increasing now in teenagers, because you are only exposing them to AI, human touch is missing.
Nicholas (Host): Technology is everywhere. Even toddlers are glued to screens. Do you see gadgets in any sense being helpful at all, or are they to be kept away entirely?
Or is it a matter of balanced approach?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): Always balance. You cannot ask children to keep away gadgets, but you have to train children to understand how to use gadgets.
It's as simple as—fine, you gave a mobile phone to a child.
Teach the child what's the distance to keep it from the eyes. Teach the child that I need to take a break every 10 minutes, so you have to follow some—some people call it the 20-20-20 rule, which means, 20 inches away, after every 20 minutes, I take a break, and when I take a break, I look 20 feet away so that my eyes are not only concentrated always on the, you know, too-near object.
It's concentrated on seeing at a distance so my eyes get that relief. So we need to teach them all this.
We have two sides of a spectrum, either people say, "I don't give gadgets only to my child," but then how will your child grow up to understand when they have to use gadgets? Or you have those who are constantly giving gadgets.
You go to these airports or any place where a child has to wait, a mother gives a mobile phone. Now the child is busy with it. I needed human interaction at that time.
You can't take me to a doctor or, when I'm feeling angry, you can't give me a mobile phone to calm me down because then it's teaching me that when I'm upset or I have emotional needs, don't go to a human, go to a machine.
So, which means when I become a teenager and I have emotional needs, where will I go? A machine, I'll go to a machine and the machine might tell me to take a drug.
So I may turn into a drug addict because I will listen to it, because when I was small and I needed you the most, you told me machine—go to a machine.
So we need to understand these dangers and we need to prepare children. It's how we give them the gadgets.
We can always say its gadget time now and now it's not gadget time.
Early Childhood Association is coming out with something called cell phone agreements.
So even three-year-olds can sign a cell phone agreement that I will not do this, this, this, this with a cell phone, and we have that right from age three to teenagers.
Teenagers have a longer cell phone agreement of what they'll do, not do, what they'll post, not post, etc.
Why not? Let's have an agreement before we give them the gadget.
Nicholas (Host): India’s trying to position early childhood education on the global stage.
How do you see India's role in shaping the future of early years in the next decade, on a global level?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): Very much so, because we have something that others don't. We have something called indigenous materials, indigenous culture, which comes from deep-rooted Indian knowledge systems.
I spoke about the Panchakosha, so if I compared Maslow's hierarchy of needs to the Panchakosha, I saw that that's quite a similarity.
But the Panchakosha came before, right?
Then there is a Panchaadi concept, which are the stages of learning in a child. Panchaadi is also given in your NCF. Now, take Bloom's Taxonomy and compare the two or compare IB's inquiry levels to Panchaadi, and you will see a similarity. So, which means India always had it, we forgot about it. We lost touch, so our Indian knowledge systems need to go global. We need to use what is already there globally to help them understand and align it to this.
We talk about life skills, a lot of life skills come from India and they're more related to emotions, culture.
We should have a culture policy in our country.
Toys, look at the materials, I've made a poster called A to Z of the Toys in India; every state has a toy, which is made of a different material.
We only give plastic children and we are afraid they will, break that toy, you know but then how do tribal children play with the same toys? Are you trying to tell me tribal children are, that means smarter than your city children, isn't it?
Nicholas (Host): If your personality were a dish from Indian cuisine, what would it be and why?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): Okay, it would be a dosa. Yeah, it would be a dosa, I'll tell you why.
A dosa has all the flavors, I feel. It looks appealing, it looks big, because the human brain actually wants something which is big in size so that it makes you feel, I've eaten a lot, you know, but it's very thin and crispy, which means it may look big, but it's just enough for you.
You can have it with different combinations or you can have it alone. So there's no rigidity in that, and it's something that—the crispiness gives you that crunch, which is very much required when you eat. Sometimes children don't eat because they lack that crunch.
If you notice children, when they start eating, the first thing they do is smell.
So if your food doesn't have an aroma, children will reject it, and then the second thing they want in their food is a little bit of crunch. So if I had to be a food, I would be a dosa.
Nicholas (Host): Thank you very much for indulging that question. I just had a follow up question to something you had said. We should teach the global landscape based on our own indigenous knowledge. Is there anything from the global landscape that we can take that we aren't?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): Of course, most importantly, what we can take from the global system is they have a lot of research and we don't.
So even if you see in early childhood, they have a lot of research. If you see all the countries—I made a comparison of 39 countries and their ECE policies, and if you see UK, it has something called Early Years Foundation Stage - EYFS. Australia has something called EYLF, which means early years learning framework. New Zealand has something called Te Whāriki.
So if I were to ask you, with so much wealth that India has, what is your early childhood curriculum called?
You will say NCF, It's fine, good enough, but I feel what we can take from the West is how they package things and how they promote it, and with the confidence with which they promote it, other countries want to take it.
It's no more than marketing, I would say, you are inspiring.
I mean, even if I were to ask a teacher, do you know about Te Whāriki? They wouldn't know, but a person who is in the field would know about it.
So their ability to bring to the world the work that they have done, because they are confident of that, they have a backing of research. We need that, we need research in India, especially in early childhood, where we light a diya as prosperity.
You started the conference also by lighting a diya, but you have a cake and you blow a candle.
So you're putting off a diya as a birthday celebration, which if you notice there are senior generations, it never appealed to them that you're asking me to blow on a candle to celebrate my birthday. Shouldn't I be lighting a candle to celebrate my birthday? You understood? So we take things without questioning and that's something that we stopped in the pandemic because when you blow on a cake, germs. So how can it be a celebration?
And then you had these other people who would put cake on people's faces. I mean in India we have children who don't get food to eat and you are smearing cake on each other.
So we are really ready to take something that comes from the West without questioning it, but we have a lot of questions about something that comes from our own homegrown. That's an attitude that we need to overcome.
Nicholas (Host): How can schools and parents collaborate better to nurture holistic growth in children?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest): Two things, parents should first be told why school fees are high, because otherwise there's always one complaint from parents that school fees are too high.
Parents should be told you have a choice. You don't like a school's fees, you feel it's not worth it, you have a choice, and this is where I feel government schools should become better because education is a right of every child.
Why are our government schools not better? So parents who don't want to spend so much on education can go to a government school, which is also offering the same quality.
2. Schools need to stop saying to parents, keep off.
Don't come in, don't ask me too many questions, there has to be a parent partnership program where you are telling me what I can expect, what I cannot expect, and why.
So once you have that respect for each other, education will be better for your child.
Nicholas (Host): So what should be some basic criteria that a parent should keep in mind when looking for a school for early years?
Dr. Swati Popat Vats (Guest):
1. How close is it to your home? Please take a school which is close to your home because children spending so much time in school buses is not good. I just said 98% of the brain stimulation comes from the movement of the spine. If your child is going to spend three hours in a school bus, you've lost three hours of stimulation.
2. Ask the qualifications of every teacher. How qualified are they?
Because ultimately, what is it that's going to be important for you?
The whiteboard in the classroom, the air conditioner, or the teacher?
So I would say schools should display the qualification of every teacher and every adult that the child will interact with, are you training the attendants, the bus attendants?
Because they are also going to influence your child. Their behaviour will also influence your child. Reinter action matters.
So that brings us to the end of the Edexlive podcast by The New Indian Express.
Thank you so much for joining in. If you'd like to listen to more of our inspiring stories, log on to Edexlive.com/podcast, or join us here on the Edexlive podcast every Wednesday as we talk to brand-new change makers every week.