Special training for co-curricular activity teachers in Tamil Nadu

After the schools reopen, the SCERT will take over the programme, a source said, adding that the training programme will be expanded into other curricular activities from the existing topics.

CHENNAI: In a bid to encourage creativity among students, the co-curricular activity teachers of high and higher secondary schools in Tamil Nadu are being given special training in music, drawing and sewing by experts from Government College of Fine Arts as well as a few professors from IIT Madras and National Institute of Fashion Technology.

The programme is an undertaking of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shishya Abhiyan (RMSA), a central scheme under the Department of School Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development.

“The teachers who are trained here will go to their respective schools and train other teachers and together they will pass on the knowledge to students,” said S Kannappan, RMSA director.

After the schools reopen, the SCERT will take over the programme, he said, adding that the training programme will be expanded into other curricular activities from the three chosen topics — music, drawing and sewing.

For now, only the resource group, which includes 150 drawing teachers, 60 sewing teachers and 55 music teachers from Classes VI to VIII from various districts — four from each — are being trained.

As per the RMSA officials, topics include uses of shapes, colours, perspectives, origami and various mediums of plastic expression, illustration, animation techniques, Indian culture and art, relief composition, design composition and terracotta, principals of design and distribution of space.

Teachers include renowned musicians like Anuradha Sriram, Kuppuswami, Anita Kuppuswami, PJ Sheshadri and other trained teachers on not just Carnatic music, but also songs and poems by Bharatiyar and Bharathidasan. Experts from IIT Madras explained subjects like engineering design, which they could teach the students.

V Sengutvan, a lecturer from Government College of Fine Arts said the idea was to teach the school teachers the basics of all subjects. In Fine Arts, the basics of design, basic creation of applications, model making, animation and psychology of children are explained.

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