School Education Department’s initiative to improve the performance of students in SSLC and Plus Two public examinations, ‘Vetri Ungal Kayil,’ was launched in government schools in the district on Wednesday.
Under the initiative, experienced teachers drawn from different schools will conduct special coaching classes after school hours and guide students on how to score more. Question banks of previous years’ exam brought out through Parent Teachers Associations, and answer keys are to be supplied to the students. Headmasters and teachers have been instructed to meet parents regularly and counsel them on how to improve the performance of their children.
The programme was inaugurated at Government HSS at Somarasampettai by K.C. Veeramani, Minister for School Education, in the presence of T.P. Poonachi, Minister for Khadi and Rural Industries, and R.Manohar, chief whip. Mr. Veeramani said Chief Minister Jayalalithaa does not want to make any compromise in extending necessary support to the student community. “We are here to motivate and encourage you to perform well,” he told the students.
School Education Secretary D. Sabitha said the department was working towards achieving the target of 95 per cent pass percentage in the SSLC and Plus Two examinations to be held in March/April 2014. Last year, the State had recorded a pass percentage of 89 per cent in SSLC and 88.6 per cent in Plus Two examination.
“The Chief Minister has tasked us with improving the academic standard of students and has ordered the recruitment of over 63,000 teachers. Of this, about 57,000 teachers have already been posted,” she said. This year, about 11.60 lakh students would take the SSLC exam while 8.81 lakh students would sit for the Plus Two exam. V.C. Rameswara Murugan, Director, School Education, urged teachers to work for cent per cent success and said teachers from schools with 100 per cent pass percentage in the previous years have been roped in to conduct the coaching classes.
Collector Jayashree Muralidharan said that the government initiative would help bridge the rich-poor divide as the students of government schools would get coaching on a par with their counterparts in private schools.
