School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi on Tuesday launched the Coimbatore chapter of ‘Namma School Foundation’ and the initiative received over ₹13.95 crore in contributions on the inaugural day.
The Minister said that the initiative, which was first inaugurated in Chennai in December 2022, had the support of 133 companies and 7,294 schools in the State were developed. In Coimbatore, the initiative is managed by the Department of School Education along with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Principal Secretary of School Education Kakarla Usha said that the industries here contributed immensely to the schools, hence the district was chosen for the second edition of the initiative.
Chairman of the Foundation Venu Srinivasan said ,“To ensure transparency, details of each school’s necessity district-wise is listed on the initiative’s official website. Companies can contribute their CSR funds after checking this list.”
Tamil Nadu CII chairman Shankar Vanavarayar said for the State to flourish for the next 20 years, skill and knowledge were important. CII Coimbatore Zone chairman K. Senthil Ganesh added that the scheme allowed companies to partner with the State in a systematic, transparent and organised way.
Later, the Minister told media persons that about 10 lakh students had enrolled in government schools across the State in the last two academic years — this includes students from private schools. “Enrolment has been increasing. The numbers for this year will be collated in August.”
To a question on the lack of regular staff to clean toilets in government schools, he said, “With contributions from the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department, over 2,090 workers were deployed for maintaining the toilets. I instructed the staff of a government school in Thondamuthur during the inspection today to upgrade and clean the toilets regularly. The administration said that the cleaning was done using their personal funds, hence workers arrived only once a day after 4 p.m. ”
