Cloudy skies greet students on day one

State government had postponed reopening of schools due to the heat

Cloudy skies welcomed students who made their way to schools in Chennai on Wednesday morning as classes resumed after a postponement of the reopening date due to harsh weather.

While most private and government schools were scheduled to open on June 1 and June 5, the State government postponed the release date to June 7 owing to the heat.

This academic year will see a series of changes inboth the State board and the CBSE streams.

“Though we are looking forward to Class XI and studying subjects of our choice, we are apprehensive about the board exams as we will be the first batch. We will have to be focussed right from the start,” said S. Radha, a Class XI science student from Kotturpuram.

For CBSE students, there will be no option of the school-based final examination this year and all the students will have to take up the board examination. A curriculum revision too has been implemented from the current academic year for Classes VI to IX as the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) system is no longer in place.

On the reopening day, text books, notebooks and uniforms were distributed to students across government and Corporation schools.

Enrolments increase

Minister for School Education K.A. Sengottaiyan distributed books and uniforms to the students of the Government Girls Higher Secondary School in Virugambakkam. “Enrolments in government schools in the State have significantly increased this year. In a week, all students will receive their bus passes as well,” the Minister said.

At MCN Higher Secondary School, an aided school in T Nagar, around 100 students were given a ‘grow your own greens kit’ by myHarvest, a city based start-up.

“The kit contains three varieties of spinach seeds, a pot, soil and an instruction manual. The children can take it home, grow the spinach and can harvest the greens in 25 days. Apart from spreading awareness about growing fresh and healthy food to the children, we are also looking to approach more schools and speak to girl students about anaemia and how greens can play a role in preventing it,” said Archana Stalin, the founder of the company.