Exams for 5 & 6 year olds?

The children of today are a hardened lot. My colleague recently informed me that she needed time off to take her 6 year old daughter for an early morning interview at one of the leading private schools in town. The trend in private schools in Kenya is for children to undergo an interview (written) to determine their suitability to join a particular school. Yes, even 5 & 6 year olds joining Standard 1 & 2 in these schools go through this interview process I learnt. I am not sure if my grown up daughters underwent the same interviews at the tender ages of 5 & 6 years old. It was too long ago for me to remember!

I began chatting with my colleague and she brought up an interesting issue that I had never thought about. While it is the right of every private school to prescribe entry level requirements to join their school, what happens to such a child who fails their interview process? Since the school is in all likelihood going to disclose the results of the interview to the parent and not the child, how does a parent break this news to the child that they have failed? Does a child of 5 or 6 years even understand the concept of failing at this tender age?

If I were the parent of a child who failed in such an interview, I would lie to my child that the school was full and could not take any more children, which means that my conscience is also pricked by that lie since I cannot tell my child the truth that they have failed a simple interview where numbers, alphabets, drawing and coloring were their undoing (how mistaken I was. see footnote herebelow!). What psychological trauma would my child suffer on account of the truth that they have failed in an interview at such an early age? Would the truth as told to them be then ingrained in their sub-conscious minds that they cannot possibly succeed in later life? Would it make them feel later on in life that they are good for nothing failures?

I honestly don’t know but this business of interview tests for very young children is just another money making scheme for the private schools similar to the practice of sale of tender documents in the corporate world supposedly to discourage time wasters and it should be discontinued because it is a source of worry to the parents should the child fail and a possible contributor of long term psychological trauma for the failed child and their lying parents!! Kids should be left to be kids at tender ages and subjecting them to tests that last throughout the day is surely taking things too far.

I am not an educationist and would like to understand the rationale behind these things because surely this must have the approval of some body within the government seeing that it has been happening for a very long time. Since all schools issue report forms to their students in whichever class they are in why aren’t these results taken as a record of the performance of a child and their ability therefore to proceed to the next class in a new school? Call me naïve if you wish but as a social commentator I need to know if this is right, just and fair!

Footnote: By the way, my colleague later disclosed to me that the interview tests are real and involve papers in English, Mathematics, Kiswahili & Social Sciences. Social Sciences!! No wonder these kids lug around those heavy school bags loaded with tomes of school books with many suffering from back problems at tender ages. And yes my colleague’s daughter passed the interview tests and shall be admitted to Standard 2 in the school in question.