The 179-year-old Scottish Church Collegiate School opened its second campus in Kestopur, off VIP Road, on Monday to meet the demand for English-medium education among guardians of the area.

The school is run by a Christian missionary organisation that falls under the Church of North India (CNI).

The new campus has been set up on the premises of Emanuel Church under the CNI. The Kestopur branch will be a co-educatio al institution affiliated to any of the two Delhi boards, the CBSE or the ICSE, and the medium of instruction will be English, Reverend Paritosh Canning, bishop of Calcutta Diocese of CNI, said.

The older school in north Calcutta is affiliated to the state secondary board and has both Bengali- and English-medium units.

“We have had a long-cherished dream of setting up an English-medium school in Kestopur. The area does not have enough good English-medium schools. Our aim is to provide residents an opportunity to educate their children in a good English-medium school,” Canning said.

The bishop inaugurated the kindergarten section of the new school on Monday. It will initially function from a building owned by Emanuel Church. The new session will begin in April next year. Admission will begin soon.

“We will finalise the board to which the new school will be affiliated within a month,” Canning said. A five-storeyed building will be set up on the premises of the church. The construction of the new building will be completed within March 2021.

“The school will be equipped with all modern facilities,” Bivash Saniel, principal of Scottish Church Collegiate School, said. “It will have smart classrooms, an auditorium and games and sports facilities for students.”

Since its inception, Scottish Church had been one of the most sought-after boys’ schools in north Calcutta.