A dedicated team of teachers has caught the imagination of demanding parents.
At a time when student’s strength in government schools are declining, efforts made by teachers of Janab P. N. A. Mohammed Ibrahim Rawther Municipal Muslim Middle School here has resulted in a significant increase in the student strength.
Competing with private schools, the teachers here work even on holidays anticipating admission of more children with the lure of English as medium of instruction. “Most of the people around the school in Kalaignar Nagar, Ayyanar Nagar are daily wage earners. They will have to pay a huge sum of money every year if they admit children in private schools offering English medium. For the benefit of poor parents, we have started classes with English medium,” said Headmistress M. Rajam.
The school that has a total strength of 120 students up to 8th standard has 41 children in Class I that offers education through English medium.
“We campaigned about the ‘English medium’ class in and around our area that caught the imagination of parents. We got an overwhelming response as many of them pulled out their children from private schools to admit in our school,” Ms. Rajam said.
She said that the strength of the school was its TRB-qualified teachers with 20 years of experience. After putting all children aged five years and above in Class I, the teachers retained those children below five years of age in a separate class of two sections to give them individual attention. “Though we do not have the concept of pre-schooling, we have put them in a separate classroom giving 30 children special coaching on the lines of play school,” the Headmistress said. The children are introduced to the alphabet in English and Tamil. Besides, they learn rhymes and games.
The children would be admitted in Class I under English medium the next academic year.
“After hearing about good coaching in this school, I put my son Ajay here. I am happy that he comes here every day and also completes his homework on his own. I find him more disciplined these days,” said a young father, M. Manickam (30), a car driver. B. Murugeswari is a proud mother as her daughter B. Jeyasakthi has shown good knowledge of English.
M. Eswari said that her daughter was getting better quality of education for no fees. “I am no more paying ₹5,000 a year for her education. Her handwriting is very legible now. In the last six months I have seen tremendous transformation in her,” Ms. Eswari said. The women said that they could spend the money, which they otherwise spend for private school, for other activities like dance and music.
Ms. Rajam said that the school was providing lot of freebies like textbooks, notebooks, maps, geometry boxes, crayons and noon meal. “Besides, the English medium students have been provided with colourful uniform, shoes and socks sponsored by the Nagar Nala Amaippu,” she said.
The school teachers have planted saplings and kept the school clean to attract parents. The gates are kept closed to give a “private school atmosphere.” All the children are taught yoga and spoken English. A volunteer is giving special Hindi coaching. Three additional teachers have been deputed from a municipal school. The teachers have appointed a person to keep the campus clean and a night watchman is paid by them and a local volunteer.
The teachers have distributed at least 4,000 pamphlets and made house-to-house campaign for admission. “We already have got 20 new admissions for Class I. We keep our school open even on holidays to attract more children from poor economic background,” Ms. Rajam said.
Published - April 03, 2018 08:10 am IST
