Add to it the fear that the dilapidated centre "will fall down any minute" and one has a nervous wreck at hand.
Ali Asger has been sleeping fitfully. His higher secondary certificate (HSC) examinations are not the ones giving the commerce student the heebie-jeebies; he worries that he will not be able to squeeze into the bench at the Khetwadi examination centre. Add to it the fear that the dilapidated centre "will fall down any minute" and one has a nervous wreck at hand.
"I went to check my centre and found that the benches are too small for me. I will be crammed while writing my paper. The place looked ancient, as if it was going to fall down at any minute," claims Asger.
Several other students, too, complain that they have been given dingy, noisy and dilapidated structures as their examination centres. Case in point: Anupa K Public School in Jogeshwari (W). Located at Behram Baug, this seven-year-old small school will serve as an examination centre for nearly 150 students. But it does not even have a proper building. What looks like an industrial shed on the ground floor has been turned into classrooms with benches. While some classrooms on this floor sport fire extinguishers, those above have a tin roof, which could make the rooms hot and stuffy.
School clerk Amar Chand, who was present when DNA visited the school, claims that all measures are being taken to ensure that students feel comfortable. "We have been an examination centre for HSC for more than three years now. We were also an SSC (senior secondary certificate) centre once. We do not have a building per se, but we have all the facilities required for a centre. We have ensured that the six rooms allotted for the students are in good shape," he says.
Education officials say they were forced to select small schools as centres because of the growing student strength. PR Pawar, education inspector, western zone, argues, "We are aware that Anupa Public School is a small centre. But it should not be a problem as long as it has all physical amenities like classrooms, benches, electricity, toilets and drinking water."
But students are not convinced. "It does not have a compound wall. There are cars parked in front of it. Where will we have the space to sit and revise before the examination? It is also located in a slum area, which is worrying," complains a student who has been assigned the Jogeshwari centre.
Claiming that the state board had no choice but to go for small schools as centres, Sarjerao Jadhav, chairperson of the board, says, "In Mumbai, it is difficult to find perfect centres. So, we have to go with whatever is available."
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