The Hindu 's Newspaper in Education (NIE) programme for the academic year 2011-12 was launched at Zion Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Tambaram on Saturday.
Sanjay Pinto, Executive Editor, NDTV – HINDU, who was the chief guest at the inaugural function, said reading newspapers was a very good habit.
Mr. Pinto said he was glad to note that the management of Zion School attached a lot of importance to newspaper reading and that students were given marks for the same.
He suggested introduction of a compulsory period everyday devoted to newspaper reading as it would expose the students to several global issues, which could not be otherwise learnt from textbooks.
Mr. Pinto added that the students should not stay away from television. There were a lot of programmes and even good serials on the television and they should watch them in addition to news.
Urging students to consider journalism as a career, Mr. Pinto said they could start right away by writing to newspapers about issues they were provoked by, be it bad roads around their schools or homes or short measurement at fair price shops. “Write about issues that affect you. Start a monthly magazine in your school and write about the best teacher, staff and student” he said.
“Students the stakeholders”
While interacting with students, Mr. Pinto was of the view that students were the biggest stakeholders in the education system and that they should be made part of the decision making mechanism. N. Vijayan, Principal and Correspondent of Zion Matriculation Higher Secondary School, said corruption was the biggest problem in India at the moment and students should learn to combat the menace from a young age while at school.
I.Justin Bernard, class XII student of computer science group, said that The Hindu NIE programme was of immense benefit to students as it increased their knowledge, creativity and improved their problem solving skills.
S.Sridhar, Senior Assistant Regional Manager (Circulation) of The Hindu , said The Hindu NIE programme had entered its 8th year. 10,000 classroom-based workshops were conducted in the previous academic year and it had touched five lakh students. 450 schools in Chennai Region were part of the NIE programme.
