Reminiscing about her old days Banerjee said, “My father passed away when I was in first year, so for pocket money I applied for the job and was offered a salary of Rs 60. I joined there as a teacher and since my age gap with other students in the school was only about 5-6 years, I was their favourite teacher. They also loved me because I used to give them good marks.”

The school, located on Kundu Road in Bhawanipur, has been upgraded to a Madhyamik school. The newly-constructed G+4 building of Manmatha Nath Girls’ and Boys’ Primary School will have English as its medium of instruction.

Local Trinamool Congress leader Bablu Singh, concerned over the safety of the school students, had urged the Kolkata District Primary School Council for the renovation of the building. However, things didn’t go as desired and the land on which the school was situated was sold by the owner to a promoter.

Banerjee said that it was about 2-3 years ago that she was on her way to visit puja pandals when she came across the school and was disappointed by it’s dilapidated condition.”Every year I visit puja pandals with Bobby (Firhad Hakim) since he takes me to a few in Chetla and Bhawanipur area. It was 2-3 years ago that I showed him the school where I was a teacher. I was highly disappointed seeing its condition and told him that it might get shut also. But he built up a five-floor school spending five crore rupees,” she said.

Stressing on the importance of learning more languages, the CM said, “This school will give equal importance to Bengali and English languages. In 34 years of the Left rule, the mode of language was Bengali till Class V, due to which many officers find it difficult in conversing and writing in English, which is important. So learn as many languages as you can as it opens opportunities.”