AID discovered that even though TN had excellent school system, eliminating issue of access to schools, the learning quality in schools was a concern. Ineffective teaching methodology, no focus on basic skills, lack of resources and low community involvement were major causes of lack of quality.
Bringing together all the ideas from various initiatives AID Chennai is now spearheading a state wide effort through Eureka Quality Improvement Program. The motto of this program as the name suggests is to improve the quality of the education offered. This includes reading skills quality, improve science & math skills and stimulating reading habits by community libraries. The following are the key programs:
- Padippum Inikkum – to improve reading skills of children.
- Ariviyal Anandam, to improve science skills of children.
- Eureka Village Library, to provide access to educational materials at hom
The strategy is to improve quality & science skills in schools by activity based learning from primary & secondary grades and to provide books at children’s homes through village libraries.
Within 5 months of introducing the reading campaign, 450,000 children in 7300 schools improved their Tamil reading skills through our Padippum Inikkum Reading
Campaign. Also across 5 districts, children who can read went up from 54% to 85% in that time.
Spreading the word that “Reading is Sweet”, the Padippum Inikkum program has introduced simple but effective methodologies to get the children interested in reading.
The program recommends various types of materials / techniques to children of different levels of reading skill.
Ariviyal Anandam program uses low cost science experiments to teach basic science principles to
secondary schools children.
The program has attracted the government’s support that many districts have started showing enthusiasm and bringing these ideas into the system.
With constant funding, the program will boast of educating a child at incredible cost of $0.60/child/year. Funding a block (in a district) for $50,000, the program will reach out to 8000-9000 children.
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