Students sweat it out in Powai classroom with no electricity

As the city experienced its second hottest March day in five years on Tuesday, nearly 25 secondary school certificate (SSC) students wrote their Hindi composite paper in a classroom without fans or lights.

As the city experienced its second hottest March day in five years on Tuesday, nearly 25 secondary school certificate (SSC) students wrote their Hindi composite paper in a classroom without fans or lights.

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There was no electricity, in one of the classrooms at Indian Education Society’s secondary school in Milind Nagar School, reportedly due to some fault in the wiring.

As temperature in the suburbs nudged 40 degrees Celsius, students braved the heat between 11am and 2 pm. “My palms were sweating, and it was extremely uncomfortable to write the exam. A window was kept open in the classroom, but it was not of much help because it was very hot outside,’’ said a student.

When parents came to know about the situation, they approached the school principal. However, the exam had already begun when an electrician reached the scene. “We tried to replace the tubelights with some from the laboratory. But we realised the wiring was faulty,’’ said Naresh Pandit, a parent.

“The room was bright and airy so students must have not faced many problems. We did not want to disturb the students, so could not fix the problem at that particular time during the exam,’’ she said.

There were no exams on Wednesday, but students are scheduled to give their English papers on Thursday. “Immediately after the exam, we fixed the problem. The students will face no trouble on Thursday. We had checked the electricity in every room before the exams but due to some reason the wiring failed on that day in one class,” the principal added.