Old students of once-elite Residential Model School plan reunion Feb 12

Former students of Dhaka Residential Model College, one of Bangladesh’s most acclaimed high schools, will return to their alma mater for a grand reunion this Friday, Feb 12.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 5 Feb 2016, 05:36 AM
Updated : 8 Feb 2016, 01:28 PM

Organisers say they hope to bring together nearly 5,000 – in a fun-filled get-together of old and present students, with the former joining with their families, on the school’s campus at Mohammadpur.
 
The day-long event will start with an 8am breakfast at the sprawling school campus, followed by a range of activities that will include cricket, football and volleyball matches, a Mejbaan-style lunch, raffles, performances by celebrity entertainers and a gala dinner.
 
The annual general meeting of the old students’ forum will elect new executives for the Old Remians Association or ORWA.
 
There will also be fun events designed for spouses, children, current teachers and other staff.
 
“There will be no dearth of activities, fun, entertainment, refreshments throughout the day,” said organiser Moshiur Rahman, a successful businessman who graduated for his SSC in 1977.
 
A former student is required to pay Tk 1000 to register and a Tk 500 more for spouse and each child and can do so on arrival at the campus or online (http://remians.com.bd). Updates are available on its Facebook page: facebook.com/remians.orwa.
 

“We would like to make this reunion a day for every old Remian to look forward to,” said Nasrul Hamid Bipu, now a government minister who left the school in 1982 having completed his HSC.
A fashion show, followed by other performances of celebrity singers, will be among the highlights of programmes planned until almost midnight.
The Residential Model School, set up in 1960, was among four schools modelled after the “public schools” in England and Wales in the then Pakistan’s four provincial capitals.

The fully-residential high school at one point allowed some Day Boys, also known as semi-boarders – an arrangement for some students to go back home in the evening.
 
The school later admitted two categories of students – boarders and non-boarders.
 
The huge campus boasts many football grounds, a cricket ground and facilities for such sports as hockey, volleyball and basketball. In the 1960s and early 70s, students even played rugby.
 
Residential Model School in Dhaka was later named Dhaka Residential Model College and now admits many more students that it once used to.
 

The school’s alumni in the 1960s, 70s and 80s included some of the best and the brightest in almost every sphere of Bangladesh’s society – from politics to sport.
In fact, the investments, very high in those days, were made to create leaders in every field.
“The advent of the so-called English-medium schooling may have taken away much of its attraction as the country’s top school in any category, but in its glory days it was undoubtedly the best in the business,” says one former student.
“The school has been famous for its wide-range of extra-curricular activities like no other high school in Bangladesh,” says another former student who spent his childhood and adolescence in the campus in the 1970s.
A new team of organisers will take over through an election scheduled for 6pm at the school’s huge auditorium.