Tiruvannamalai launches unique venture to make toddlers, primary students ‘study ready’

Tiruvannamalai

This follows district-level surveys showing students lacking knowledge in even their mother tongue. “Only if we improve at the grassroots, can the district improve its State-level standing at the Class 12 level,” he opined.

To begin with, anganwadi teachers would be trained in “learning while doing” skills to ensure that toddlers imbibed a love for studies. Revealing that the government has sanctioned Rs 42 lakh for the purchase of teaching kits for all anganwadis in the district, he said “if pre-schoolers can be made to love studies then from there progress will be easy.”

With this in mind, the district also became the first in the State to receive Rs 4.15 crore funds from the government’s Special Growth Balanced Fund (SGBF) to hire 154 teachers for 111 primary schools in the district on a consolidated salary of Rs 7,500 a month for three years to ensure that primary school students are ready for higher classes when they move to middle schools, Kandasamy said. The scheme will cover the backward Chengam, Thandarampattu, Pudupalayam and Jawadhu hills blocks, he added.

“The proposal to use love of learning, doing while learning methods, was first tried out in the Jawadhu hills where five teachers who were trained in new learning outcomes in Chennai revealed an improvement in the students scholastic skills,” he said.

To develop foundational language skills, improve physical skills, maximise independent living and lessen the effect of disability, special schools in Chengam, Thandarampattu and Pudupalayam PUs, Tiruvannamalai, Arni, Vandavasi and Cheyyar municipalities and Vettavalam, Chetpet and Polur town panchayats, will be given Rs 46.12 lakh worth special education material to provide physiotherapy, speech therapy and sensor integration therapy. “This will ensure that all students are covered. Results should be evident in about three years,” he said. and Sanskrit, he was known for strict discipline.