While looking for a pre-school for her three-year-old, the factors that Santa Cruz resident Tara Ramakrishanan had in mind were: proximity to her home and safety. She was also keen that the school be a branch of the same academy where her sister's children studied. "My knowledge about kindergarten until then was based on my own memories from childhood. It was only after I started hunting for schools for Rudra Raj, that I realised that there's a range of curricula offered in the early childhood education spectrum."

Much as primary and secondary education in Mumbai (and across India), come with a varied set of curricula to choose from—CBSE, state boards, IGCSE and International Baccalaureate—today's pre-primary schools offer courses in early childhood education (for ages 3 to 6), developed by different countries in the absence of any recommendation laid down by the Indian government.