Rural school students to be given special coaching

CHENNAI: The decision came against the backdrop of reports that most students belonging to the BC, MBC, and DNC (Denotified community) institutions hail from rural areas and hence their schooling was entirely in the Tamil language. In addition, Class 12 students in Kallar Reclamation Schools will be given coaching. These schools usually function with hostels.

A senior official from the School Education Department told DT Next that the Tamil Nadu Skill Development Corporation (TNSDC) has been entrusted with providing the training courses by involving private experts.

Elaborating upon the difficulties faced by the backward community students, he said after they complete school and college, these students find it hard to compete with others especially at national level competitive exams and while appearing for job interviews. “Hence to improve their English communicative skills and work upon personality development this training course has been proposed. The training classes should be widespread across districts and a training batch should consist of a maximum of 80 students,” he said.

The official said a student will be given training for 100 hours (70 hours of communicative English and 30 for personality development training) in a year. “The training will be conducted through a private agency in hostels where the students stay or at a place selected by the District Collector,” he added.

The official also said that comprehensive workbooks and study material will be distributed to all students who register for the training programme. “The syllabus will be interactive, user-friendly, culture-specific, technology-aided pedagogy,” he added.

“So far, approximately, about 30,000 students have been identified, who find difficulty in communicating through English language. Pre-coaching orientation will be conducted before the start of the actual coaching to cultivate a sense of readiness, create a conducive environment for communicative english and provide scope for revision,” the official said.