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Now, there is a sense of urgency to reopen the schools in TN!!
Posted on: 25/Jan/2022 9:18:00 AM
The schools in Chennai and in TN have been given holidays now till 31st of January 2022. This was mainly due to increase in both Coronavirus plus Omicron variant cases in TN. It has been found out that there has been a drastic drop in the education standards of the elementary school students in Tamil Nadu. The virtual classes or online classes have led to several issues for these students and one such issue was that these students were unable to read or write even basic alphabets. The school education department has been given warnings by the teachers regarding this. There is some sort of urgency witnessed now in the officials to reopen the schools at the earliest.
As per a senior official belonging to the school education department it was confirmed that while working on the ‘Illam Thedi Kalvi’ scheme that 90% of the students belonging to the classes 1 to 3 of state run government schools faced issues to read and write even the basic alphabets and numeric letters etc. He then threw light on how the government school students belonging to classes4 to 8 did not even have the needed qualification to get promoted to the next class.
It must not be forgotten that previously many private schools have mentioned that online classes were proving to be unsuccessful in imparting education especially for the elementary level students. Many representations have been issued to the state government by the private schools regarding reopening of the schools. In November, the TN government was gearing up to reopen the schools for classes 1 to 8. The decision to reopen the schools was deferred as the health experts and others have pointed out that a third Coronavirus infection wave would hit Tamil Nadu anytime soon.
It must be taken into account that Mr. K.R. Nandhakumar, general secretary, TN Nursery Matriculation and CBSE Schools Association had submitted a representation to the chief minister of Tamil Nadu on Monday seeking permission to reopen schools for classes for the kindergarten. He mentioned that most private schools were unable to conduct online classes for the elementary level students. Online classes cannot be a replacement for the direct physical classes even for the higher standards and schools must be reopened soon.
According to Mr. P.K. Ilamaran, president, TN Teachers Association, teachers across TN have been sending reports stating that the elementary level stud nets belonging to government as well as government aided schools have forgotten about the alphabets etc. He added that the authorities must reopen the schools when normalcy returns or else the situation might become very bad. Information collected is that in TN at present there are 40lakhs students studying in the classes 1 to 8 in about 40000 government and private schools.
