Started in 2003 with just 12 students in a small room, the Corporation Elementary School at Kavithalakshmi Nagar here has now 110 students with the attendance showing growth every year. Reason for the increased turnout, at a time when preference for government schools are on a decline, is attributed to the roles of those ‘Ambassadors of school’.
They have been reaching out to more people in the last few years informing the salient infrastructure facilities the school developed due to the sustained efforts taken by the teachers with the financial support of a few philanthropists and also the innovative approaches taken in coaching the students.
With English medium to be introduced from this year, the campaign by teachers, parents and outgoing students has attained a different proposition.
They are now pasting handwritten colourful posters in different locations asking the people to enrol their children in the school which offers facilities on a par with matriculation schools and extends both Tamil and English medium education free of cost. “Why then anyone should go to private schools? Come to Corporation Elementary school at Kavithalakshmi Nagar,” tells the ‘Ambassadors of the school.’
But what it makes parents attracted to the school?
Each of the classrooms in the school now has two ceiling fans, granite floors and a mini water purification unit.
“We are also giving additional coaching to students who did not pick up the subjects well. Since majority of the students are from poor families, the good quality noon meal provided to them after the teachers themselves tasting each of the dishes, is an attraction,” M. Karpagam, headmistress of the school who initiated the changes seven years back, told The Hindu .
Apart from this, the students used to be given prizes worth Rs 10,000 after holding cultural competitions on important commemorative occasions.
