Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey

Updated on: Monday, October 19, 2009

Kolkata: There are about 50 residential schools in Darjeeling that bear the “heritage” tag, which means they are over 100 years old.

The schools were spoken of in the same breath as Doon School or Sherwood Nainital. Today, students from Kolkata count for just 10% in these schools. It is the North-east states, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh that send the maximum number of students today. About 30% of the student population comprises foreigners — mostly from Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand and Bhutan.

The nail in the coffin was the indefinite strike called by GJM in mid-July. Even schools were brought under the ambit of the agitation and institution heads told to suspend classes.

“No classes could be held as teachers could not come to school. Boarders spent their time revising their syllabus. We organised group study programmes where the weak students were helped by the brighter ones. In between, there were games sessions. This affected studies, especially in the senior classes,” said Father Kinley Tshering, principal of St Joseph’s.

“My son is about to sit for ICSE this year. Naturally, I couldn’t shift him at this stage. But his studies have suffered so much that he will now have to be coached for the next three months in Kolkata,” said Manav Pradhan, whose son studies in a Kurseong school, the same one he went to as a child.

“My son is in class IX and my hands are tied. But I know of many parents with kids in junior school, who have spoken to heads about withdrawing their wards. The schools are trying their best to explain that it is completely safe inside the campus, but imagine the anxiety of parents who get to see the latest round of agitation on TV,” said Rudranath Mukherjee, whose child is in Mount Hermon.

As the state government has done little to help the schools, parents have individually written to chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, seeking his help to resolve the crisis.

The consul-general of Nepal in Kolkata, Surjoman Sreshtha, feels the concern of parents is natural. “Earlier, many families from Nepal used to send their kids to Darjeeling boarding schools, but now the scales have tilted in favour of schools in Mussoorie and Dehradun,” he said.

There are at least 150 Thai children in the residential schools of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong. For the past 20 years, it has been a tradition among affluent Thai parents to send their kids to Darjeeling.

“Political stirs in Darjeeling are bothering parents and some have even discussed shifting their kids to residential schools in other places in India,” said Thai consul-general Manop Mekprayoonthong.

Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey

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