Any person in a situation is not a simple matter. How easy it is for us to accuse the mother of not making an effort to register her daughter for kindergarten.
What people don't know is, the mother cannot speak English much, and therefore have very very low confidence and courage to speak to the principal or school administrator about it. It doesn't help when the school administrator speaks in such a condescending manner to the mother when she has to communicate with them.
The mother is very dependent on the father to arrange these matters. However father may also not be familiar or confident enough to fill up the complicated forms. Yes, it may be simple to us, but complicated to them. In fact, sometimes it's complicated even to us, what more to them?
On top of that, the father is working as a security officer, and his boss may be the bossy type who doesn't allow employees to take leave without 6 months prior notice - and he is afraid of losing his job. He is even afraid to ask his boss (haven't you ever been apprehensive about asking your boss for urgent leave before?)
Even if they have managed to fill up the forms, she will need to go find a shop that will photocopy her documents for her (e.g. IC, birth certs), and she has 2 toddlers and 2 babies to bring along. She doesn't have taxi money to conveniently do that. She wouldn't dare ask the school to do it - they may scold her for not preparing her documents.
It can be quite a daunting effort for the mother to navigate through all these difficulties to 'make an effort to register her daughter for kindergarten'. Of course, all these can be avoided, if the school itself is helpful enough to help photocopy and fill up the form for her and then ask her to bring missing documents, if any, to complete her registration.
Actually it's the school who didn't make an effort to help her, when they are in the capacity to do that.
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