One Lakh TN govt teachers of Classes 1-5 to take test

Over one lakh teachers of Classes 1-5 in government and government-aided schools will be tested on reading, writing, and arithmetic skills.

After a short mandatory training, an online test will be conducted for them and if any teacher fails, they need to reappear again till trainees clear it successfully. This programme is a part of the State government’s ‘Ennum Ezhutthum’ (literacy and numeracy) scheme, to be launched shortly.

The aim of the mission is to improve literacy and numeracy among children and ensure that every child attains the fundamental skills of reading, writing and basic arithmetic. A senior official from the School Education Department said that 1,08,275 teachers were shortlisted, of whom 80,085 are from government schools besides 28,190 from aided ones. Stating that training would be imparted in seven phases from February 9-25, he said the coaching programme was made compulsory for teachers so that the ‘Ennum Ezhutthum’ mission would be successful.

Explaining further, the official said the teachers would be taught how to coach students on basic reading and writing according to their standards. “The training programme will primarily focus on capacity building of teachers and provision of teacher resource material,” he added. He said the course materials have been prepared by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and would be distributed. “After the training programme, teachers will have to appear for online test,” the official said, adding that the performance of the teachers will be sent to authorities for verification. If a teacher’s performance was poor in the test, they will have to reappear. Teachers will be given certificates, which will be produced when they participate in the Ennum Ezhutthum’ scheme, expected to be launched in April, 2022.

The State government has earmarked Rs 66.70 crore for the literacy and numeracy programme. Also, the training programme is likely to change as SCERT updates course material every year to further improve the scheme.