When this academic year begins, primary school students studying at government schools in Tamil Nadu will get access to smart boards in their school campuses.
Work to install smart boards in 23,000 primary schools has commenced across the State. Apart from this, broadband connections will be given to over 8,000 schools. Around 50% of this work is expected to conclude by June 2024.
“The smart boards are meant for primary school children. Around 22,791 schools will get these boards. Some school that has more children will get two boards,” School Education Secretary, J. Kumaragurubaran said.
The idea behind the initiative is to help students enhance their learning skills through visuals. A lot of videos across various subjects have also been prepared that would be displayed at the boards.
“As of now, the idea is to allocate two hours per week for each class to learn from smart boards. The timings are being worked out. There are plans to make it part of the curriculum,” he said, adding that the project would help students understand the concepts taught in classrooms well.
As on May 1, over 500 smart boards have been fixed. Schools in Andimadam and Ariyalur have got 86 boards, schools in Cuddalore (Kattumannarkoil, Mangalore, Nallur, Panruti) have got 201 boards and at Nagapattinam (Vedaranyam), 22 boards have been fixed in various locations.
In Salem region (Kolathur, Nangavalli, Pethanaickenpalayam, Tharamangalam, Yercaud) 157 boards have been installed. Smart boards have also been installed at Tiruvarur (Muthupettai) and Villupuram (Marakkanam, Melmalayanur, Thiruvennainallur).
Tech labs for middle school
Work is in progress to set up high tech labs for middle school students. Around 10 systems would be provided to each school. “Around 8,000 schools will benefit,” he said.
“Students can now learn coding, python and other programming languages in these labs. Today, most students opt for jobs pertaining to information technology, and learning IT skills from a young age will help them,” he added.
Tamil Nadu is the human capital for the Indian IT sector and a majority of students from the State get absorbed each year.
Also, around 80,000 primary school teachers will be given tabs. Mr. Kumaragurubaran said that the tabs would be used for teaching and creating content along with doing assessments for students. To a query on the funding for all these initiatives, he said, “The total investments for all these initiatives is around ₹1,100 crore.”
