The Hindu : Front Page : Polls come in way of summer camps in schools

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 02, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Front Page

Front Page

Polls come in way of summer camps in schools

Deepa H Ramakrishnan

— Photo: R. Ragu

A Chennai Corporation school at Egmore wears a deserted look.

CHENNAI: The Chennai Corporation will not conduct summer camps this year for hundreds of students of its schools since they will be polling booths for the May 13 Lok Sabha elections.

The civic body had drawn up plans to conduct music and dance classes in association with Jawahar Bal Bhavan after examinations. Thursday was the last working day for students of classes 5 to 8.

“The target was around 1,000 students from 35 Corporation schools. The plan had to be shelved also because of the fact that it went against the election guidelines. This is the first time we planned to have music and dance camps,” a senior official said.

Last year, the Corporation offered training in various disciplines, including volleyball, tennis, football, boxing and basketball.

In all, 300 students benefited. “Intensive training was provided and the participants thoroughly enjoyed it,” said an official of the Corporation’s Education Department.

The Corporation has not been able to complete the syllabus for drawing, music and dance classes offered as part of co-curricular activities in the schools.

“We had drawn experts from Government Music College and Government Arts College, and were teaching students from 30 schools for over four months. The plan was to continue the classes in summer. But, in April, when the schools were handed over to the Election Department, we had to give up that as well. Many of our teachers have been deputed on election duty,” the official added.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page