In March 2022, G D Goenka Baramulla started the maiden academic session for the first batch of students, with state-of-the-art facilities.
Owing to its well designed infrastructure of international standard, the five storey building with the central heating and cooling facilities, has become the main attraction for the parents and the students enrolling their kids in the school, located in Sangrama area in the outskirts of the Baramulla town.
The campus is spread over 120 kanals of land and the building has a capacity to accommodate around 5000 students.
Given the standard of the infrastructure, the school has no match at least in whole north Kashmir districts which is the main reason for parents who have kept their expectations high for the progress of the school which ultimately will prove fruitful for their kids.
But for an educational institution, mere high-end infrastructure cannot fulfill the needs of the students and satisfy the parents as well.
The GD Goenka Baramulls school has not been in the news for some time, but that does not mean all is well within the institution.
The parents of the students studying at the school have been left disappointed due to its weak management.
One such reason for the disappointment of the parents is that three Principals resigned from their positions in the school in just one academic year, which is not a good sign for the management of the school, for obvious reasons.
The management of the school had earlier hired Rajev Kumar as the first principal of the school who however resigned before the commencement of the maiden academic session of the school in 2022. The principal left without making his issues public and the management on the other side had its own justifications to safeguard the reputation of the school. In other words we can say, the management put the blame on the principal who resigned from the school.
After Kumar, the management of G D Goenka school hired Jyoti Gupta as new Principal for the institution. As a journalist, I interacted with Jyoti Gupta at the time of commencement of the first academic session of the school. During our conversation, I found Jyoti Gupta as one of the reputed academicians with high intellect who as the head of the schools had a clear vision about how to add diversity in the curriculum to meet the needs of the children.
After the passage of less than three months Jyoti Gupta resigned from her position which again raised questions on the functioning of the management of the school.
But again, the management had its own reasons to avoid the blame and instead gave an impression that the school is looking for better options available.
Later, the management hired Anurag Das as the new principal. He joined the school during the mid session of the first academic session and later resigned before the commencement of the second academic session of the school, leaving the parents surprised again.
The crux is that in one academic session, three principals resigned from their positions in G D Goenka school.
Such changes have left the parents astonished as to why the principal, who in other words is the academic head of the institution, does not survive in the school for at least one year.
This has raised apprehensions among the parents about the future of their kids and obviously the level of expectations has also started to dwindle.
Amid the frequent changes, the management of the school has now assigned the job of the principal to the administrator of the school. The move has again raised questions as whether the decision has been taken on merits or out of compulsion to keep the ball rolling.
The parents have started questioning if the school really follows the standards of GD Goenka group New Delhi.
"It has to be seen if the person who was working as administrator is fit for the post of the principal or not. Why was he given the position of an academician if he was earlier looking after administration," a parent questioned.
After interacting with several parents, I was given an impression the school is not meeting the expectations which was, however, claimed at the time of admissions.
"We were very excited when we heard about the opening of the GD Goenka Baramulla school. We were impressed with the infrastructure and the promises made by the school authorities. However, the school has failed to live up to our expectations, and we are now regretting our decision to enroll our child here," said a parent who enrolled his child in the school during the current academic session.
The parents are mostly annoyed with the policy making of the school as according to parents, the school has no separate policy for pre-primary class students which has mentally disturbed the kids studying in the school.
"My kid is in nursery school and the school bus picks him up at around 8am in the morning and drops him at 4 to 4.30 pm in the afternoon. This way he is kept for eight hours in the school at this tender age. We have many times asked the management to keep a separate fleet of buses for these kids so that they are back home by 2 to 2.30pm but school is yet to make any such arrangement," said another parent.
"Because of the mental pressure, my kid wakes up in the middle of night and shouts that I want to go home. I have to put him to sleep at 8pm after he comes at 4.30 from school. He hardly spends three to four hours with family," the parent said.
The Director G D Goenka Baramulla Raja Zubair when contacted said the school was in its infancy stage and cannot afford a separate fleet of buses for pre-primary kids. He however assured that the school will try to look into the issue of school timing and come up with some suitable solution which will be in the interest of the students.
The school authorities need to take immediate action to address the concerns of the parents and students.
The situation at the GD Goenka Baramulla school is a cause of concern for all stakeholders, and urgent action needs to be taken to address the concerns of the parents and students.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.
