Date:13/12/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/12/13/stories/2007121356030800.htm

Tamil Nadu

Activity-based learning planned for adults

Staff Reporter

Volunteers to be identified to conduct classes

— PHOTO: S. JAMES.

SPREADING CONCEPT: M.P. Vijayakumar, State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, interacting with schoolteachers in Madurai on Tuesday.

MADURAI: Buoyed up by the success of the activity based learning method being followed in primary schools and in an attempt to intensify adult education in rural areas, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has mooted a plan to identify volunteers in villages to conduct classes for adults through ABL method, said its State Project Director M.P. Vijayakumar, here on Tuesday.

Speaking at the training programme on ABL method for district resource persons, he exhorted the teachers to identify volunteers, train them and motivate that person to pick 10 or 15 illiterate adults in each village and teach.

“Though the adult education system is active, it lacks the sting as most of the adult education classes come under non-formal education,” he said and questioned the success of an untrained volunteer striving hard to educate illiterate adults.

The SSA was even prepared to pay honorarium to the trained volunteer for a time being, though the same could not be assured for ever, he said.

Expressing satisfaction over the implementation of ABL and ALM methods in primary and upper primary schools across the State, he said that the new system had brought remarkable change in the teaching learning process. Emphasising the need to encourage overall development of the child, he stressed for teachers’ contribution in not only students’ cognitive development but also in emotional development. Students passing out of Standard V, found to be weak in studies, would be isolated in the upper primary section and remedial classes would be conducted for them, he said.

He said that these innovative schemes could lead to a renaissance in society and wanted the resource persons to be determined and unbiased while discharging their duties with commitment and conviction. Resource persons drawn from different districts including Madurai, Virudhunagar, Tuticorin, Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari, Dindigul, Pudukkottai, Theni, Nagapattinam, Sivaganga, Ramanathapuram, Tiruvarur and Thanjavur participated in the training programme.

The training programme would be conducted in Salem on December 12 and 13 and in Kancheepuram on December 14 and 15.

Chief Educational Officers, R. Pandurangan, K. Sridevi (SSA), State ABL coordinators M. Shanmugam and S. Pitchaiah, were among others to take part in the programme.