Online carnatic concert on August 22: Musicians to raise funds for TN Single Teacher Schools

Hence to ensure every child gets an opportunity to study and to take education to the doorsteps of poor villages in remote parts of the State, the Single Teacher Schools (STS) were established in 2006 (by the Swami Vivekananda Rural Development Society).

In order to raise awareness and garner support towards the initiative, renowned artistes have vowed to come together and do their bit in empowering children with education. Bombay Jayashri, Chitra Viswesvaran, Jayanthi Kumaresh, Abhishek Raghuram, GJR Krishnan and GJR Vijayalakshmi, Amritha Murali and Ashwath Narayanan are set to perform online on Saturday to increase awareness and gain support for the fundraiser on Milaap. They aim to collect Rs 1 crore to set up an additional 1,000 schools.

For the STS, qualified women are selected from the villages and trained as teachers, with the idea of creating employment and also enabling better communication. The schools are equipped with blackboards, mats, solar lamps and first aid kits, and the children are provided with books, stationery and health camps free of cost. Despite a very high operating cost, members of the STS are relentlessly working to take education to the doorsteps of those that need to be empowered the most and are raising funds online to garner support from people across TN and the world.

The focus is on holistic education -- sharpening learning abilities, skills, behaviour, health and hygiene besides the curriculum. STS is presently working with over 31,000 children from over 1,000 schools across nine districts in the State (Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, Vellore, Ranipet, Tiruvannamalai, Chengalpattu, Coimbatore, Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam). Though most of the children attend nearby government schools, they need supplementary education to sharpen their learning skills, functional literacy and other abilities, leading to holistic training.