At long last, Samacheer Kalvi text books have landed in all the government and aided schools.
Headmasters from the three educational districts of Tiruchi, Musiri and Lalgudi took possession of the books from three geographic collection points on Wednesday. The headmasters were instructed to utilise PTA (Parent-Teacher Association) funds to meet transport charges. And now, the school education department's focus is on taking a plunge into academic activities without any more wastage of time.
On Thursday, a meeting of headmasters that the department has convened will be chaired by a senior official from the Directorate of School Education to orient them on the nitty-gritty of utilising the Samacheer Kalvi text books.
As the monitoring officer for the revenue district, the senior official holding the rank of Joint Director will issue clear instructions on the pages to be deleted or torn off, paragraphs to be hidden with stickers, and the pictures that need to be concealed.
From standards II to V and from VII to X, a total of 41 corrections need to be made, according to the Chief Educational Officer T. Mohana Kumar. The corrections will be carried out at the school-level by the respective headmasters and teachers.
The process will be completed in three days from Thursday onwards. On Independence Day, the books will be distributed immediately after the flag hoisting ceremony, the CEO said, adding that the classes with Samacheer Kalvi books will start from August 16.
For students of classes I and VI for which Samacheer Kalvi was introduced last academic year, the corrections were carried out for the entire district centrally under the supervision of the CEO with Rs. 2.8 lakh allotted earlier for the purpose of disbursement to headmasters for meeting expenses towards transport of text books.
A sense of relief among headmasters is palpable as they will henceforth be able to play their monitoring role effectively. Since bridge courses were prescribed so far, there was difficulty in expecting teachers to prepare weekly lesson plans. Headmasters favour training for teachers, particularly in Mathematics and Science.
The CEO acknowledged that there were some hard spots in these two subjects that warranted prior training for teachers. Model question papers are expected to be prepared in a fortnight's time to orient Matriculation, Oriental and Anglo-Indian schools to the pattern of examination under Samacheer Kalvi, Mr.Mohana Kumar said.
