Tribal students, Top Slip and technology make for a winning combination

Wild Wing Trust plans to groom students to adapt to urban environment

February 17, 2014 02:45 pm | Updated May 18, 2016 08:50 am IST - COIMBATORE:

Coimbatore Collector Archana Patnaik inspecting the Forest Department-runtribal school in Top Slip.

Coimbatore Collector Archana Patnaik inspecting the Forest Department-runtribal school in Top Slip.

For the students in Classes V, VI, VII and VIII in the Forest Department’s tribal middle school in the middle of forest in Top Slip, students have been having teachers from across the globe. The students and teachers meet at the predetermined time, watch and listen to one another, engage in the teaching-learning process and sign out for the day to catch up the next day for the next lesson.

This interaction among the tribal students and teachers across the globe had been made possible with the active involvement of Wild Wing Trust and support of eVidyaloka, an online organisation that facilitates e-learning.

Wild Wing Trust’s Managing Trustee C. Saravanan said that the organisation’s volunteers decided to help the tribal children after studying the forest and tribal community for long and coming to the conclusion in their education and empowerment lay the future of the forest.

The volunteers started off by visiting the school on weekends to help the children by providing cots, books, etc and meeting their other requirements. But that did not bring about the expected change. It was then that they decided to partner with eVidyaloka to improve the teaching-learning process.

With the help of software and other professionals from Coimbatore who worked abroad and were willing to teach the children, the Trust volunteers provided television sets, network connectivity to bring together the children and the teachers through a video conferencing system.

The online teachers complemented the teachers at the school in that they shared the teaching but provided additional resources like showing video clips, demonstrations, etc. to the students to help them understand better. Mr. Saravanan said that the online teachers also stuck to the Samacheer Kalvi syllabus.

And, the result of the online intervention has been good. Headmistress Vanaja Durairaj said that the students’ commitment towards had improved. “They listen more, study well and also come well groomed to the school.”

The Wild Wing Trust did not stop with that, though. It also took a group of students, who were interested in sports, to interact with cricketer Rahul Dravid in Bangalore. “This was part of our confidence building measure.”

The Trust’s next plan was to groom the students to adapt to urban environment so that they did not drop out of school when they head to the plains to pursue Class IX and X. Field Director of Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) Rajiv K. Srivastava and Range Officer Xavier recently infused more life into the school by sourcing more teachers and bringing in more activities for the children.

The old building had been renovated to provide an ideal ambience. Forest Department sources said that they were encouraging the new teaching-learning activity so that the tribal children received quality education.

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