Schools in Kochi

[noel]

Hello, I came across this forum by accident. Noticed that people have concerns very similar to what I wrestled with when I moved to Kochi in late 2008 (and some I continue to wrestle with) ie. school, home location, renting, buying independently vs via a builder etc. Happy to give my 2 cents on the subject.

Ref. schools - I keep this quantitative cheat sheet on school results to go with all the qualitative factors in case someone is interested. Unfortunately, info is skeletal as data is not easy to come by.

[sumachechi]

Where have you chosen- schools, to live etc?
I suppose its important to also know the total number of students who appeared for the examinations in each school. Of course that info would not be available in the Hindu.
Thankfully, this is the last year of CBSE Class X exams.
My kids are in Choice and so far am happy with my Choice!!!!

[noel]

Yes, the total number of students is important and was available only for 2005 and 2007. One can perhaps use that for guidance or if someone has the info or can obtain it, they can update the sheet.

I chose Choice for two reasons.

1. I wanted to admit my child for nursery and only Choice and Global provided that facility. I chose Choice as it was closer. I also did not want to wait a year for LKG admissions as I have no external help to get admissions - I felt that getting into nursery would be easier than the LKG route.
2. I valued the communication skills at Choice - they stress on neutral accent for English. Also liked ambience, teaching method ie. montessori, teacher - student ratio.

I have been renting a furnished villa in Kakkanad for the past year and a half. Chose a villa for security and the open space. Rents unbelievably are the same as renting an apartment of similar size (in some cases lesser than apt rent). Also looked at options for buying a villa but gave up - Cochin is overpriced (thumb rule to know overpricing: ratio of monthly rent to EMI - Bombay is 60% ie Rent covers 60% of your EMI, Bangalore is 45-50%, Cochin is an abysmal 20-25%; got this thumb rule from a retail banker). I bought a piece of independent land instead recently (took me 8 months as there were a number of complications but the complications helped in reducing the price a bit).

[r2k]

Thanks for providing details about school and real estate in cochin. Can you please share the location (not exact) and per cent price? Is there any water problems near Choice or in Kakkanadu? Buying land and building a home is most appropriate in Kerala but with the recent wave of villa's I was thinking may be getting a Villa with a slightly higher price may be better for the community feeling. How do you like the community in your current rental place?

Thanks

[noel]

I paid 2.8 Lakhs per cent in Kakkanad. This is an unusual low price because I bought a land classified as agricultural (which comes with some risk as you cannot easily build a home on it) and it also requires a private road to be built for a short distance. Good water is available if you can get the Kerala Water Authority to pipe it to your house - that can take a bit of time & effort. Groundwater requires more luck as the occurence of potable or non-potable water is almost random than location based. The villa complex I rent in is fantastic because of the strong community and well built roads and homes. Also it is more than 60% occupied. If you are planning to buy a villa, among other things, check if folks buying are planning to stay there and are not buying for investment purposes. If it's the latter, community formation will hit a wall.

[Indian Heart]

I thought the land prices have come down a bit in Kakkanad due to uncertainty on the SmartCity project. Which part of Kakkanad you got the plot for 2.8 L per cent? I purchased some plot for around 2L per cent, but that was 2 years ago and the location is 10 km from Kakkanad.

[Indian Heart]

Noel,

Can you share how much is the annual fees in Choice in lower grades? Their website shows around Rs 10K per term. Is there lot of additional fees, book fees etc etc in addition to this 10K fees?

Also, how is the discipline and culture of the students in higher grades? Many people said the kids from *very rich* families study there and that makes it very difficult for the kids from families who prefer modest living. Is there any truth in it?

[noel]

I bought land 1.5 KM from Bharat Mata college - our land is classified as agricultural land. If this were classified as residential land, cost would be 4.5-5.5 Lakhs per cent for that area.

Rgd. Choice school: LKG fees is about Rs. 28000 per year for this year; there is also a one-time non-refundable donation of 1 lakh when you join. We paid no additional fees, no books for LKG. If you use school transport that is an additional 1300-1500 per month. Don't know what the tuition cost for higher grades is - but you get the picture. You are paying basically for the student-teacher ratio. Currently LKG has 24-26 students per class. Higher classes have about 35 children. Kids from well off families do study here. The kids and parents that we deal with in LKG are pretty level headed. Don't know in general about kids in other classes but many of the high school kids in our neighbourhood from Choice do behave well. We did hear similar opinions as you did but without hard data we didn't know what to make of it.

A tip: a common mistake parents make is to start school hunt a bit late. This will ultimately affect the no of schools you can apply to (let alone get admitted to). If you do not have any influence and are particular about what type of school your kid goes to, you may want to start school search in Oct/Nov. for admissions to the following academic year. This will give you enough time to visit and gauge the admission process in various schools.

[sumachechi]

Termfees for Class 8 AND Class 3 student( including annual term deposit and excluding transport fee)- for first term was Rs 26,000/-. This fee includes all text and notebooks which you can collect directly from school. This also includes swimming as part of curriculum.
Iam told Chinmaya Vidyalaya charges the same term fees as Choice and my understanding was that the fees of BVB are only slightly lower( dont know actually how much that slight is). However, you buy the books separately. I dont know if anybody has visited any of the BVB's recently- the building maintainence and general exterior and interior is extremely shabby. Considering they have about 15 extra students per class ,only 'slightly lower fees', and more sections in each class, they should be collecting the same amount if not more than choice. I also know for a fact that they pay their teachers lesser than Choice does. External steps to cafeteria etc were extremely steep and very slippery due to regular leaf shedding and rains which no-one bothers to clean up.

[r2k]

I bought land 1.5 KM from Bharat Mata college - our land is classified as agricultural land. If this were classified as residential land, cost would be 4.5-5.5 Lakhs per cent for that area.

Thanks for the information, do you have to register your initial contract? Also I heard the since you have to register the "Karar", the difference in money is paid out of the registration process these days. Most of the folks wants to low ball their price in writing but get the maximum from the buyer.