14 Jul 2023  |   06:00am IST

Western music students face hardships due to delay in reopening of Kala Academy premises

The students learning different instruments are accommodated in one room; difficult to learn respective instruments as sounds get mixed up

Team Herald

PANJIM: Students learning western music in the Kala Academy are facing hardships due to delay in reopening the Kala Academy premises. Currently the students are accommodated in the Old Secretariat building. 

The students learning different instruments/faculties such as piano; electronic keyboard, cello, classical guitar, violin and solo singing have been accommodated in one room making it difficult for them to learn their respective instruments, as the sounds get mixed up. 

The classes for students learning violin are held in the balcony, about four students are metres apart in a row as they do not have individual classrooms as was the case in the Kala Academy premises. With the honking of motorists, the blaring music being played by the cruise boats is adding to their misery. 

“Teachers teaching us are not audible due to constant movement of two-way traffic along the Dayanand Bandodkar Road and the blaring cruise boats,” said one of the students. 

The wooden floors also don't seem very secure. The parents are also finding difficulty in parking their vehicles when they come to drop their children. It is a pay parking area utilised by mostly casino guests.

“The area is so dangerous to cross the roads, sometimes we just have to leave our children to cross the road on their own. It is a blind curve and vehicles are speeding. If we park wrongly our vehicles are immediately clamped, a parent said urging the authorities to shift the classes either to another spacious place or in the much-awaited renovated Kala Academy. 

When contacted, Director of Western Music Fr Romeo Monteiro said, “I have told students and parents that we have to bear with the situation and adjust. This is temporary arrangement till we shift back to Kala Academy.”

Fr Monteiro said that the main issue is of nine teachers who are teaching western music on lecture basis and are demanding regularisation. These teachers are soon going to make a representation to the government for regularisation of their services.  

During the last two years since the classes were shifted to the Old Secretariat, as many as 30 students have stopped learning western music due to these hardships, the parents said. Many deadlines were set on reopening of Kala Academy by Minister for Art and Culture Govind Gaude but all have not been fulfilled.