It had to be shut down 7 years ago since locals were opting for English-medium schools instead
Seven years after it shut down due to a fall in demand for Marathi-medium schools, the 100-year-old Sheth Dharamsey Govindji Thakarsey (DGT) High School on VP Road will open its doors for a fresh batch of students from June this year, thanks to the intervention of its alumni.
The school, run by Gokhale Education Society (GES), was forced to shut down in 2010 since most of the students from the locality were enrolling themselves into English-medium schools, leaving DGT High School with no takers back then.
But a bunch of ex-students from the school were sad to see the iconic school shutting down in front of their eyes despite its excellent educational record. So they took it upon themselves to revive the institution. “Ever since the school shut down in 2010, former students have been discussing about what can be done to prevent an educational institution of this stature from collapsing.
Over the last few years, we realised that with the rising demand for a national curriculum and English education, there would be more takers if the school is revived with the English-medium CBSE board being introduced. We made this suggestion to the management,” said Kiran Mulgaonkar, an ex-student of DGT High School.
The school will now reopen in June this year as an English-medium institution affiliated to the CBSE board in the same iconic building from where thousands of its ex-students passed out. The admission process for the pre-primary sections will be started from April 16.
MK Chaube, the superintendent of GES’s Mumbai zone schools, confirmed the development. “Started in 1918, DGT High School is the first school that the society started and several great personalities, including Mahatma Gandhi, have visited the premises. We are extremely happy that we could revive it with the help and support of our ex-students,” he said.
Some of the school’s former students who have made it big include Marathi film actor Ashok Saraf, BJP MLA Ashish Shelar and actor-politician Nitish Bharadwaj. “The school is like our temple, where we have spent some of the best days of our lives. We are happy that it is going to be revived and as an ex-student, I will do all it takes to extend my support,” Shelar, a student from the 1987 batch, said.
Close to 2,000 other ex-students are now busy spreading the word via meetings and drives in their own communities and localities.“The idea is to revive the school and also make affordable yet quality education available for the students in the locality. We are trying to urge parents from the locality to admit their students here as we want this school to live forever,” said Samir Kamat, a student from the 1983 batch.
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