Soft skills: Corporation ropes in volunteers to train kids

Volunteers for Teaching (VFT), a pilot project by the Greater Chennai Corporation has been connecting people in Adyar keen on bringing about a social change to schools run by the civic body. These volunteers then provide training in extracurricular activities such as spoken English, music, dance, Yoga and sport within the premises after school hours. 

In January this year, 25 Corporation-run schools in Adyar (Zone 13) started after-school extracurricular activities for the students, to impart additional skills and bolster their confidence – all outside the gambit of a rigid curriculum. The idea, said Mageswari Ravikumar, Deputy Commissioner (Education), was inspired by the community’s enthusiasm. 

“The response from the community was encouraging, as they offered their skills to conduct after-school sessions on spoken English and other cultural activities. In fact, the demand for spoken English was the highest.” 

She added, “We decided to run a pilot project in January. It is still in its nascent stage and we are trying to gauge its impact on the students. We will expand it to other zones depending upon the results.” 

Charu Govindan, coordinator for VFT, said that this project brought together the local community and Corporation-run schools. “Within two days, we had 200 volunteers, who had listed out their areas of expertise,” explained the member of Voice of People initiative. She added, “We matched the requirements with the skill set of the volunteers and created a timetable. Now, 65 volunteers are conducting these sessions at 25 schools.”