'Illam Thedi Kalvi’ scheme useful, says survey

CHENNAI: Most of the parents and teachers across Tamil Nadu are of the view that the 'Illam Thedi Kalvi', (education at doorsteps) the flagship programme of the DMK government, was useful for the children, who started to learn better and the scheme should continue.

A survey, which was conducted about the impact of the 'Illam Thedi Kalvi' (ITK) scheme by the State Planning Commission, was submitted to Chief Minister M K Stalin on Saturday. A total of 717 parents who took part in the rapid assessment responded that ITK helped in creating interest and bridging the learning loss.

According to the findings, 85.6% of the parents have said their wards have started to learn better and 74.1% claim that learning has become a happier activity for their children besides 73.1% of the parents were happy that their children learn the play way and learn new games and activities.

The assessment said that the parents shared that the children study at home (85.6%) after coming back from the ITK centres which they have not seen before the Covid-19 pandemic situation.

However, the survey said -- Manavar Manasu – the grievance redressal complaint box in schools set up a year back does not exist in many schools. Accordingly, the students claim that the boxes were kept only for a week or it is kept inside the headmaster's room.

Similarly, as many as 365 teachers from six districts were interviewed for the rapid assessment. A total of 98.9% of teachers assert that the play way method employed in the ITK centres has rekindled the interest in learning among children.

Almost all the teachers (99%) have acknowledged that the initiatives taken in the ITK centres complement the regular classroom. Accordingly, a total of 93% of teachers acknowledged that they have seen visible changes as they handle mathematics in regular classes after the advent of ITK.

Likewise, 97.3 % of volunteers, who take classes for ITK, have acknowledged that school headmasters and teachers continuously monitor and support the ITK centres by ensuring regular attendance of children and bringing back the children who were not regular to the centres.

Stating that a total of 679 volunteers from 362 schools participated in the survey, the findings said 68.2% of the volunteers have responded that there is no change in the attendance of the children after the reopening of the schools after the long closure while one-fourth (24.4%) of the centres located in the community saw either an increase or decrease in the attendance.

All the 679 (100%) volunteers interviewed expressed that the training on teaching and learning materials was very useful. According to combined views almost all the respondents, (except 1.5%) stated that the ITK scheme should continue.