The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : “Impressive, innovative teaching”

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Saturday, Dec 13, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

“Impressive, innovative teaching”

Staff Reporter

British High Commissioner to India Richard Stagg visits Corporation school

— Photo: M. Vedhan.

GETTING TO KNOW: (From left) British High Commissioner Richard Stagg, Director of Elementary Education K. Devarajan and honorary adviser to SSA M. P. Vijay Kumar interact with a student of the Corporation Primary School in Manjakollai, Chennai, on Friday.

CHENNAI: The Education Department in Tamil Nadu can be very proud of the Activity Based Learning (ABL) programme and the Active Learning Methodology (ALM), where children play a leading role in education, British High Commissioner to India Richard Stagg said here on Friday.

He was visiting the Corporation Primary School in Manjakollai, Shenoy Nagar, to see the implementation of the ABL and ALM, as part of the State’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). He visited classrooms, interacted with the children and teachers and later addressed presspersons. “It is a system with some links to how we teach in the United Kingdom,” he said.

The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development supports the SSA with a 150 million pounds commitment to achieve universal elementary education in India by 2010. “We in Britain see education as absolutely fundamental to India’s future…” Sir Richard said. On the implementation of the ABL and ALM methodologies, he said it was an “impressive example of innovative teaching” where children themselves lead the process supported by the teachers, without sitting passively and being talked to.

Sir Richard said that the children had a completely different relationship with the teacher, to what he had seen anywhere else in India. “I think that you have got here a model which give opportunities to young people of Tamil Nadu to develop more rapidly…and to generate much better, quicker and more effective learning. So I think it’s a real success story.”

“I think the challenge for India is how far other States can learn from this. It’s not that it is a blueprint that every state should match exactly, but it offers some important lessons on how you can teach people in a different way and develop their knowledge, skills and confidence.” Observing that he was astonished by the children’s confidence, he said that foreigners and men with grey hair can intimidate, but they [the children] seemed completely unaffected.

For learning to be embedded, it should be driven by the pupils and not teachers. “This is very much our own philosophy [in the U.K.].” Honorary consultant to SSA M.P. Vijayakumar and SSA’s State Project Director R.Venkatesan were also present.

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