Rs 8 crore upgrade planned for Gossaigaon Higher Secondary School

Gossaigaon Higher Secondary School in Assam's Kokrajhar district will get an infrastructure upgrade costing Rs 8 crore, Education Minister Ranoj Pegu said in a post on X, India Today NE reported on Sunday, November 8.

The minister did not give a detailed list of the works in the report, but said the project is meant to improve facilities at the institution. No timeline for completion was mentioned.

A school with a long history

The school was set up in 1947 under the leadership of the late Tara Charan Majumdar and is counted among the oldest educational institutions in the Gossaigaon area. It was provincialised, or taken over by the state government, on April 1, 1964, and upgraded to the higher secondary level in 1991.

Its campus is spread over 16 bighas. The school has about 1,490 students, with classes running from Ka Shreni, the pre-primary level in Assam's schools, up to Class 12. Arts is its only stream at the higher secondary level.

The school has 45 teachers and five non-teaching staff, according to the report. Its alumni include people who went on to make a mark in literature, culture and politics in the region.

Why it matters locally

Gossaigaon, in the western part of the Bodoland Territorial Region close to the West Bengal border, is a subdivisional town in Kokrajhar district, whose headquarters town of Kokrajhar is also the seat of the Bodoland Territorial Council. A higher secondary school with nearly 1,500 students is a major institution for families in the surrounding villages, who would otherwise have to send children to Kokrajhar town or further away for Class 11 and 12.

The report did not say whether the upgrade includes new classrooms, laboratories or hostel space, or when work will begin. NEInsider will report the details of the works when the Education Department releases them.