pune airconditioned classrooms swank clean floors and a laundry for cleaning uniforms may have little to do with a municipal school but pune municipal corporationrun rajiv gandhi academy of elearning in sahakarnagar is breaking the stereotype and asking its students to dream big the daughter of a fruitseller at pune railway station afreen sayyad wants to become a computer engineer when she grows up and the son of a welding mechanic parth kakde wants to become an indian administrative services ias officer when we set up the school we wanted the students to have the quality of education and facilities that would enable academic excellence many children who come here live in slums but we wanted to create the environment where they leave their troubles behind and can focus on studying said deputy mayor aba bagul whose pet project was inaugurated four years ago set up with an initial investment of rs 12 crore bagul said the running expenses of the school including the contracts for kitchen and laundry services is rs 5 crore a year the difference starts right from the school hours students are expected to be in school by 8am and stay on till 4pm there are many children who dont have an atmosphere at home that is favourable for study so we try to keep them on the school premises for as long as possible he added as soon as the children come to school they are greeted with a cup of milk followed by a morning assembly and then breakfast classes begin after breakfast and there is an hourlong beak in between for lunch on the day this reporter visited the school lunch comprised rice dal two vegetable curries rotis salad and fruit the food here is very tasty apart from the food we also have laundry service we give our uniforms in the morning and by afternoon they are washed ironed and returned to us said shraddha verma a class x student baguls popularity with students is evident he is greeted by a swarm of children when his car drives into the school but they also speak affectionately of all 44 members of staff including the 28 teachers the teachers in this school are very friendly and approachable there are also so many facilities here that we didnt have in my previous school said ekra inamdar who transferred from a private school to this one four years ago these facilities include two computer laboratories with 50 computers apiece apart from a separate computer laboratory for the students in class xi and xii where all the lessons taught in class are available in the form of videos that they can watch in case they missed them in class on occasion these are projected onto a screen in class through lcd projectors as well the long school hours mean that time is set aside for assignments there is no homework and the children dont have to carry bulky bags to school their books are stacked in