Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Monday inaugurated 303 Smart Classrooms created at a cost of at ₹6.86 crore in Radhapuram.
With this unique feat, Radhapuram Assembly segment has become the first Legislative constituency in the entire country to get ‘Smart Classrooms’ in all government and government-aided schools.
The Smart Classrooms, each costing about ₹2.26 lakh, have been created in 297 government and government-aided primary, high and higher secondary schools, Government Industrial Training Institute, Radhapuram, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University’s Mano Colleges at Panagudi and Thisaiyanvilai, Office of Chief Educational Officer, Tirunelveli, District Educational Officer, Tirunelveli and District Educational Officer (Primary Education), Valliyoor.
Besides releasing funds from his Constituency Development Fund, Mr. Appavu managed to get Corporate Social Responsibility Fund from Kudankulam Nuclear Power Corporation (KKNPP) in his Radhapuram constituency and construction major Larsen and Toubro, which is building nuclear reactors in KKNPP.
Mr. Appavu said he, after witnessing the gap between the poor rural students studying with the government schools and students of other baords learning through modern teaching gadgets like ‘Smart Classroom’, dreamt of creating this facility in all schools in his constituency.
All the curriculum from Class I to XII and allied information have been uploaded in the ‘Smart Classroom’ in 3D format, which will make learning easier, he said.
“Since we’ve connected all the schools in the constituency with the education department offices through ‘Smart Boards’, the officials can virtually meet the teachers and the heads of these institutions in no time. We’ve provided uninterrupted power supply system in all these smart classrooms with touch screens and webcams as there should be no interruption during teaching. The webcam facility will enable the students to acquire new skills, especially spoken English, with an expert teaching them from a particular place,” he said.
The Speaker has roped in many experts to teach the children – right from primary school to higher secondary school – spoken English everyday.
“The experts will take spoken English classes for 30 minutes everyday and give simple homework to the children master the skill. The exercise will include Tamil to English and English to Tamil translations after teaching them small sentences right from simple present tense. Since the children are from rural areas, this practice will equip them with the skills required for forming small simple sentences in English while speaking and writing. They will be encouraged to speak and write the small paragraphs in English to strengthen their vocabulary. This exercise will be corrected and returned to the children,” he said.
Even as Mr. Appavu is persuading the KKNPP administration to recruit the locals in the ‘C’ Category jobs in the upcoming nuclear park, he firmly believes that the spoken English classes introduced in the schools and the ITI in Radhapuram would give these students an edge.
Collector K.P. Karthikeyan said 800-odd ‘Smart Classrooms’ had been created in Tirunelveli district so far and State Government’s ‘Manarkeni’ mobile app installed in all these ‘Smart Classrooms’ to make learning easier.
Founder of Neotouch India Private Limited Durai Kandasamy, who have supplied the ‘Smart Classrooms’ said the teachers had been adequately trained to operate these modern homegrown gadgets through which more than 10,000 persons could participate in virtual meetings.
Chief Educational Officer, Tirunelveli, Chinnarasa, said experts had been hired up to April 2024 for taking virtual spoken English classes to the children. “We’ll renew the hiring in next academic year also to make it a continuous process,” he said. Chairman of District Panchayat Council V.S.R. Jegadish participated in the event.
