Thane to open city’s first night college for underprivileged

The college will provide free education to civic school students as well as to those below the poverty line

To provide higher education to the underprivileged, the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has for the first time decided to start a night college in the city. The first-of-its-kind degree college will consist of the Arts and Science streams. This college will provide free education to civic school students as well as to those below the poverty line. The city already has two night schools operated by TMC’s education department.

Classes will be held in Kisan Nagar School No. 1, in the six empty classrooms. (Praful Gangurde/HT)

Manish Joshi, the education officer, said, “We will provide complete education from kindergarten to Degree College, to our civic students. Most of these students have to discontinue their education after school and work to support their family. They remain deprived of higher education. Thus we have decided to start a night college, so that students who need to work during the day can get to study at night.”

Classes will be held in Kisan Nagar School No. 1, in the six empty classrooms.

“These classrooms are empty in the evening, thus we can use them for the night college. We would not have to shell out any additional money for the construction of the college. 30 % of the seats in the college will be reserved for the TMC school students and 20% for students below the poverty line,” Joshi said.

Joshi said the TMC will tie up with a private educational institute for setting up the college. The corporation does not have teachers or experts to operate a college, which would be provided by this private institute. The college will start from the academic year 2018-19. Depending on its popularity, the TMC can start more such colleges in its schools in future.

The corporation also operates a signal school for underprivileged street children at Teen Hath Naka signal.