Many students cannot read or write Tamil; tests reveal

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Many students cannot read or write Tamil; tests reveal Anasuya Menon

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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 The Hindu 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. Success of Padippum Inikkum Campaign Full Report Tamil Reading Campaign implemented in 5 districts of Tamilnadu by AID-India and Government of Tamilnadu has started showing it result. Some of the milestones achieved during October 2006 – March 2007 are : The number of 5th standard children who can read fluently has doubled - from 35% to 70%! 5th standard children who can read at least sentences has increased from 58% to 85%! The number of 5th standard children who could not even identify letters has dropped from 13.4% to 1.8% - coming down 7 times! Taking 3rd, 4th and 5th std together, Children Reading Fluently has increased from 25% to 59% 92% of the children have improved their reading skills by at least one level within 5 months. Number of schools where more than 70% children can read tamil fluently  went up from 78 to 2107! 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.