The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Summer camp for 12 lakh students

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 03, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Summer camp for 12 lakh students

Staff Reporter

Students will get an opportunity to improve reading, math skills

SKILLS UPGRADE: School Education Minister Thangam Thennarasu hands over a workbook for teachers to Mayor M.Subramanian at the inauguration of the summer camp for school children in Chennai on Wednesday. SSA State Project Director M.P.Vijayakumar is i n the picture. — PHOTO: S.R.RAGHUNATHAN

CHENNAI : About 12 lakh students from 43,000 schools in the State will attend summer camps launched by School Education Minister Thangam Thennarasu here on Wednesday

The 18-day programme across the State is aimed at enhancing arithmetic and reading abilities of students going to classes four and five.

Survey

A survey conducted (in June 2006) among Class 5 students of government and aided schools in Tamil Nadu, revealed poor reading and arithmetic skills. Only 34 percent of the students passed in Mathematics. As for reading levels, 61 percent of the students could read well, 30 percent could read in bits and nine percent of the students could not read at all.

Rs. 4-crore project

The camp, a Rs.4-crore project organised by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) wing of the School Education Department, is an outcome of this survey.

Speaking at the function, Mr. Thennarasu said the Department was ready to acknowledge its shortcomings and believed in addressing them immediately.

Though the overall pass percentage of students in rural schools was higher than their counterparts' in the city, since language and math were important aspects of learning, students were given additional coaching. Slow learners would be given special attention, he said.

`Teachers not forced'

Teachers were not being forced to be part of the camp. Only volunteers among them and yet-to-be employed B.Ed graduates were being roped in, Mr. Thennarasu said.

Chennai Mayor M. Subramanian lauded the minister and department officials for their consistent effort.

Activity-based learning

SSA State Project Director M.P. Vijayakumar said the coaching would be based on activity-based learning modules, to make the sessions interactive. An initial round of assessment was done.

Results would be compared to the post-coaching review to be undertaken at the end of the camp.

State Secretary for School Education M. Kutralingam, Director of School Education R. Kannan, SSA Joint directors R. Elangovan and S. Kannappan were present.

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