A 7ft by 10ft room with benches arranged neatly in three rows and each row is reserved for the students of particular class as they all are taught at the same time. This is the story of BMC transit school which is temporarily set up in Bharat Nagar slums of Bandra.
This transit school was set up in 2012 with the aim of housing three schools of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). For temporary functioning, nine classrooms were made available to the school until the new five story building is ready to serve as school complex.
It has now been five year and school building is yet to be completed and since then teachers of three schools--BKC I, Bharat Nagar II and Bharat Nagar III are taking multiple classes in the same room.
“The teacher first instructs the first row where class III students sit. Then she moves on to the class IV students in the second row. We are the last ones,” said Ayesha, a class V student of the BKC I school.
According to the teachers, nearly 1100 students attend the school every day and there is not enough space in the temporary building to accommodate all the students.
“We have morning as well as afternoon sessions. On an average, 14 classes are held per school. There isn’t any space and we manage by adjusting three classes in the same room,” said one of the teachers from BKC I school.
Unavailability of the space has not only affected the teaching and studying but is has also led to an increased dropout rate.
“What will the children learn when they are huddled with senior or junior students? How can the teachers concentrate? There are no basic facilities,” said Irshad Khan, a resident of Bharat Nagar who pulled all three of his children from the school.
The new building whose construction is on halt since past six months is situated only few meters away from the transit building. “The first three floors are complete. We are waiting for a commencement certificate (CC) from the MMRDA which is the planning authority of the land,” said Mahesh Palkar, Education Officer, BMC.