Tamil students cannot read or write in Tamil @ Coimbatore
An impromptu test conducted by the Education Department among Tamil medium students in upper primary classes recently has revealed that 12,000 of them in Coimbatore district cannot read or write Tamil. The test covered about 97,000 students studying in government and government-aided schools. About 26,000 of them could write haltingly and with mistakes. The test involved 10 simple Tamil words. The fact that a large number of students could neither read nor write in the medium of instruction, has raised alarm in the department. Chief Educational Officer S. Karmegam told that a special training programme would be launched with immediate effect to address this grave problem. “All these12,000 students will be given intensive training and the problem will be corrected before they moved on to the next class,” Mr. Karmegam said.Based on the results of the test, the students were divided into Red, Yellow and Green categories.Those who could not read or write found a place in the Red category, those who could write with mistakes came in the Yellow category and those who could do both were put in the Green category.Those in the Red category would get rigorous training by specialised teachers and those in the Yellow category would be given coaching, he said. The department has tied up with a Chennai-based non-governmental organisation, Aid India, for an initiative called ‘Padippum Inikkum’. Through this project, subjects are introduced to children in the form of stories. Each lesson will be presented in the form of colourful, glossy story cards, which will have lots of pictures and text in large fonts to catch the attention of children. “The idea is to make learning interesting for students and make it easier even for slow-learners,” Mr. Karmegam said. Aid India, in tandem with the Centrally-sponsored Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan scheme, will carry out the project in all schools in the district.
