The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : New curriculum, new furniture

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 16, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

New curriculum, new furniture

Staff Reporter

UNICEF gifts tables, stools to students of Kasimedu Corporation Middle School

HAPPY LOT: Students at the Pudumanaikuppam Corporation Middle School at Kasimedu, which received tables and low stools from UNICEF after the tsunami. — Photo: M.Vedhan

CHENNAI: Students of the Pudumanaikuppam Corporation Middle School are a happy lot today. They have low stools to sit on, and sturdy oblong wooden tables to spread their charts and posters. T

he brand new furniture in the classrooms seems to complement the novel activity-based curriculum.

The school, in Kasimedu, got its shiny tables and stools from UNICEF after the tsunami displaced many of the students and damaged the infrastructure.

"We supplied 1,875 teacher's desks, chairs, 413 benches and desks for classes VI to VIII and replaced 243 oblong tables that the Chennai Corporation had specially designed for classes I to III to facilitate activity-based learning," says Aruna Rathnam, project officer (education) with UNICEF Chennai.

Ms. Rathnam says UNICEF completed the supply of furniture to five districts, including Chennai, by October 2005.

"The only change we made while supplying to primary schools was replacing plastic stools with wooden planks."

Sceptical teachers are now convinced about the furniture after seeing the young ones happily plonking down with their activity charts for the day.

According to a Pudumanaikuppam school staffer, the new designs fit in well with the curriculum that promotes self-learning.

The Chennai Corporation recently introduced the new curriculum in its primary schools.

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