‘Success strategy' for students soon

The new Chief Educational Officer of Madurai district, S. Nagaraja Murugan, who assumed charge here on Wednesday, plans to implement a success strategy for improving the students' performance in Class X and Class XII public examinations this academic year.

With the Board examinations just three or four months away, he is coming out with a separate encouragement drive across all schools in district for both ‘weak students/slow learners' (to reduce failures) and for bright students who can secure State ranks with some extra motivation. “My special focus will be more on Tenth Class students because of the uniform syllabus introduced this year. There are still some apprehensions among school teachers on ‘Samacheer Kalvi' syllabus and some of them seem to be worried about Class X English subject. The objective is to see that our Madurai district's overall performance / pass percentage goes up in this year's Board exams,” Dr. Nagaraja Murugan told The Hindu on Thursday.

Based on his experience in producing / sustaining good results in Virudhunagar district and also in Chennai where he was the CEO before coming to this district, he is raring to go all out with a ‘motivation mantra' for teachers and students of government, aided, corporation and Kallar schools.

“Even though it is already December and half-yearly exams set to start on December 14, I am pretty confident to put Madurai district on the State map in public examinations. There will be a focused approach towards weak/average students to achieve 100 per cent pass while we will also have a systematic schedule for bright students to score just a few marks more so that they can find place in the State rank list,” he said.

After taking charge, he called on Collector U. Sagayam and briefed him about the steps he is going to initiate in the next few days. The SSLC pass percentage in the district in 2011 was 90.10 per cent while it was 87.92 the previous year. In Plus Two examinations, they were 90.56 per cent and 90.23 per cent respectively. “First, we have to motivate headmasters and teachers. It is they who know about their students. Based on second midterm / half-yearly examination results, the students will be prepared,” he said and added that special counselling sessions will also be organised in schools.

The CEO said that his aim is to see Madurai district get a total pass percentage of around 96 per cent which is being achieved by Virudhunagar district every year. “Collector Mr.Sagayam is a motivating force for us since he closely follows how schools and students gear up for the crucial final examinations,” he summed up.