Children enrolled with schools in urban areas have the luxury of choosing their nearest Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination center, however for hundreds of students from villages in the coastal belt of Uttan, the lone option for them is a journey of around ten kilometers to reach their centers in the east and west sides of Bhayandar. Despite repeated demands by management of schools, municipal corporators, parents and social organizations, the state education department has failed to facilitate an examination center for this coastal area whose population has already crossed the 45,000 mark.
Apart from smaller schools, there are five bigger educational institutions including- St. Joseph High, Royal English High School and Amcha Ghar High School in the coastal region which impart training upto tenth and even 12th standard. On an average around 700 students from Uttan appear for the SSC examinations every year. “We have been communicating with the education department for facilitating a center in Uttan for the past couple of years. However, we are yet to get a positive response.” said local municipal corporator- Sharmila Bagaji.
Echoing a similar view, Agatha Dias of Amcha Ghar said, “Starting an examination center in Uttan is the need of the hour. Our management is ready to extend all assistance needed by the education department to set up the center for the convenience of students.”
Notably, the erratic frequency of public transport buses and exorbitant fares charged by auto-rickshaws, not only forces the students to leave their homes hours before the start of examinations but also drills a hole in the pockets of the parents- most belonging to the lower economic strata of the society. The SSC examinations are scheduled to be held from 15 March on an offline mode, this year.
