61,650 students assessed for ‘Ennum Ezhuththum’ literacy scheme across TN

CHENNAI: Assessment of the ‘Ennum Ezhuththum’ scheme for 61,650 students in 5,096 schools across the state concluded on Friday.

The School Education Department launched the numeracy-literacy programme after the COVID-19 lockdown to strengthen the foundational education among students of classes 1, 2 and 3. Subsequently, the programme was extended to classes 4 and 5.

Per the learning abilities, the students were taught concepts of the three subjects by grouping them into three levels - arabu (primary level), mottu (mid-level) and malar (secondary level).

The recent assessment was conducted by the State Council for Education Research and Training (SCERT) in government schools from December 2 to December 13. The programme aims to make all primary students read, write and be able to compute before 2025.Sources said that a third-party organisation was selected to conduct the assessment as part of the monitoring and evaluation process of Ennum Ezhuthum for three years.

“From each class (1 to 3), two students were selected randomly through the Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) portal. These students were given basic literacy and numeracy activities to perform,” a teacher from a government school said.

For the assessment, SCERT has uniformly selected 135 schools, with as many as 1,620 students and 144 enumerators in each TN district. Hence, 61,560 students will undergo the assessment with 5,472 enumerators.