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Guru Griho

From Bogra
Coronation Institution : 95 Years

Selina Sheuly

The Bogra Coronation Institution was established 95 years ago. The school was named “George School” on February 1, 1912 after King George V. Later it was renamed “Coronation”. At first all the school had was a tin shed for its classes north of Bogra in Kalitala Haat. The founding directors were District Magistrate Borodakanta Talukdar, the Late Nabab Abdus Sobhan Chowdhury, Khan Bahadur Hafizur Rahman Chowdhury and the Late Khan Sahib Riaz Uddin Kazi.

The school had always done well in academics and sports. Most guardians valued both these pursuits. The public supported it too, and a building soon replaced the tin shed with government support. Some of the people to have served as Headmaster in the early days of this school include Babu Purnendu Chakrabarti (1912), Babu Girishchandra Bhattacharya (1914), Satyendranath Das (1915), Jeetendra Mohan Moitra (1916-1922), Narendranath Chakrabarti (1923-1929) and Umeshchandra Bhoumik (1930-1940).

At first, the school only offered grades 3 to 5. Later they started taking 6 to 10. This is how it was until 2004. In 2005 the school started offering classes from KG to 11th grade. In its first year, the 11th grade had 11 students. Currently it has 44. The numbers in KG are also increasing.

Right now the student population of this school is about 1000. It is a co-educational school but male students greatly outnumber the females. Right now the school has two buildings on four acres of land in the middle of the city. The buildings face south and there are two big playing fields right in front of it. To the west of the school there is a mosque and a residence for teachers. Right next to it there are two students' hostels.

There are numerous problems that the school has to deal with. This adversely affects the students and their learning. The old building has not been renovated due to lack of funds, so when it rains the water leaks down into the classrooms. Some classrooms have not been used in a long time and are very damp. There is almost no sanitation. Much of the place is foul-smelling. There is one common room allocated for the female students and it is almost unusable. There is one library, but needless to say, it is also in a pitiable state. There are three 'laboratories', which are not being used due to a lack of instruments. There are two computers that are being neglected in a damp room. There is a valuable audiovisual set in one corner which is also underused. It is impossible to name every single problem this school is faced with.