After a two-year wait, more than 600 students and teachers of Govandi’s Natwar Parekh Compound CBSE school finally entered their new building on Monday. For the first time, students attended classes without sharing benches and used amenities such as independent classrooms and an astronomy lab.
Since August 8, mid-day has reported how the newly constructed building remained unused due to the missing access road, forcing all students to attend the overcrowded Shivajinagar-1 school, where children from seven schools were cramped into a single complex. Now, using a back road, the students are permitted to access their rightful school building.
Happy students in the school’s astronomy lab. Pics/By Special Arrangement
“The new school feels so good… We spent our first two days decorating our classrooms with charts, and now we even have more common spaces, like a tiffin room. My favourite part was the astronomy lab,” said Std VII student Javeria Khan. “The washrooms are clean, and the noise from the main road doesn’t disturb us,” she added.
On November 7, as reported by mid-day, Javeria and other students had protested outside the building over the lack of access. The ground, first, and second floors are functional, while the top three floors will be ready soon. The school currently uses a smaller gate while the access road is under construction; sources say it will take three months to complete.
While parents continue to raise concerns about garbage being dumped around the school premises, they were relieved to see their children happy on the first day. “Earlier, picking up my children was stressful because of the crowding, but now they finally have proper space. And since the school is inside a lane, the speeding vehicles on the Ghatkopar-Mankhurd link road are no longer a concern,” said Badshah Shaikh, Parent-Teacher Association head.
