Until a decade ago, mathematical measurement in primary schools was taught through memorisation and repetition. Children copied tables of units several times in their notebooks: 10 millimetres is equal to a centimetre, 100 centimetres is equal to a metre, 1,000 millilitres is equal to a litre, and so on. Teachers dictated definitions and students repeated them aloud. That approach is not what one would find in a government-run classroom today, in Tamil Nadu.
In a government school in Sivaganga, a teacher introduced measurement differently in February. Each child was asked to bring a tumbler, a water jug, and a plastic pot from home. The next day, the class was told to measure water using what they had brought. The children poured water into their containers and compared quantities. None of the measures matched. One tumbler held more than another, one pot was bigger than the other, and the sizes of the jugs varied. The teacher then asked a simple question: “If everyone uses a different vessel, how do we agree on the quantity?” That is when the idea of standardised measurement was introduced. The teacher brought out litre models and asked a few students to measure water again. This time, the quantity was the same.
On the same day, in another school in Tiruvallur, a Tamil teacher revised a lesson on identifying letters from other languages that have entered Tamil. She divided her multigrade classroom into two groups. On each turn, a representative from one team came forward, picked a cardboard cut-out of a letter and showed it to the opposing team. The other team had to read the letter aloud correctly. The teams took turns. By the end of the activity, the children were reading the letters with ease.
The teacher then asked them to open their workbooks and start doing the exercises. Class 1 students traced and outlined the letters, learning how to write them. Class 2 students filled in the blanks with missing letters in words, while Class 3 students moved on to a more advanced exercise of using the letters to form words and using them in sentences. In both these classrooms, instead of beginning the class by asking students to copy from the board, the teacher began with participation.
Ennum Ezhuthum
This is how all government and government-aided schools in the state have been teaching students since the beginning of the academic year 2022-23, under the state government’s Ennum Ezhuthum programme. Launched in the aftermath of Covid-19 lockdowns, Ennum Ezhuthum was designed to bridge the learning gaps and restore foundational learning through level-based teaching, continuous assessment, and targeted support, to ensure that children regain age-appropriate competencies in literacy (Ezhuthu) and numeracy (En).
Nirikshitha (name changed), a primary school teacher, recognises the intent behind the programme and its role in helping students regain lost ground. “I am seeing a learning gap in students these past few years. Many in Class 3 (2025-26), for instance, were in KG classes during Covid and I am able to gauge that their foundation isn’t strong in many subjects. This gap is more in children whose parents are unable to help them with academics at home,” she said.
Under Ennum Ezhuthum, children’s competencies are categorised into three levels — Arumbu, Mottu, and Malar. A Class 1 student is expected to attain the competencies mapped for the Arumbu (foundational) level, Class 2 students move towards the Mottu (mid) level, and Class 3 students are expected to reach the Malar (advanced) level. If a Class 3 student is assessed to be functioning at the Mottu level, the response is not to move ahead with the syllabus regardless. Instead, the teacher provides targeted support to bridge the gap.
Ponnamma (name changed), who has been working in a government school for several years now, says she is beginning to see clear changes in her classroom categorised this way today when compared to the pre-Covid period. Her multigrade classroom, with a strength of 20 students, functions best because she believes the classroom encourages peer learning too. “If I am focusing on the Mottu or Arumbu level students a little more to make them understand a concept, those in the Malar level often help their peers.”
She adds, “Earlier, we simply opted to teach with either the blackboard, or a smart board. But the teaching methods were very traditional and therefore, a lot of learning was rote learning. With Ennum Ezhuthum, the way we teach has changed a lot and I see it helping the students.” She even goes on to attribute focused English lessons on phonetics to how her students are able to read English with utmost ease. “All my Class 3 students are able to read English dailies fluently. That wasn’t the case before.”
Onus on teachers
Under this relatively new programme, much of the responsibility has shifted to teachers. They are no longer expected to complete portions and conduct revisions. They are expected to design activities, assess students’ levels, and ensure that every child progresses.
That shift, however, did not happen without support. An official from the school education department informs, “Teachers were trained through a series of training camps and continuous re-training camps beginning in 2021.”
The training aside, teachers were also equipped with a detailed handbook to guide classroom practice. Each of them received a kit containing all the teaching and learning materials meant to encourage play-based methods. “The idea was not to leave teachers to improvise on their own, but to equip them with tools to rethink the classroom,” the official adds.
A standardised timetable for each week, along with the prescribed time period to spend on each subject, was handed over to the teachers, making it easier for the state to monitor and compare teachers’ assessments of the students’ progress.
Ranjani (name changed), a teacher from Madurai, even discloses how the state’s team created an official Telegram group. “For the past few years, teachers have been posting videos of their classroom activities there. Every day, the team reviews the submissions and selects a ‘pick of the day,’” she informs.
According to Ranjani, that small act of recognition has encouraged her and many other teachers to experiment with new ideas for classroom activities. It has also strengthened their morale, she says.
In addition to this, Ponnamma says that the schools and classes that perform well every academic year under Ennum Ezhuthum, will have their photographs featured in the following year’s academic material, giving teachers and their classrooms visibility across the state and encouragement.
The downside
Although classroom activities and lessons are designed and shared with teachers, their impact depends largely on how teachers plan and structure their weekly lessons. The framework provides direction, but its success rests on preparation, time management, and thoughtful execution at the classroom level. That responsibility does not come without limitations, teachers say.
The first challenge is class strength. The programme works best with one teacher for every 20 students. In several urban pockets, that ratio does not hold. A single teacher may handle 40 to 45 students. In such settings, grouping children by level, monitoring activities, and giving them individual attention becomes difficult.
Nirikshitha says, “I have 45 students in my monograde class. It is so difficult to manage so many young children through the play-and-learn method. Simply writing down on the blackboard and paying attention to students of such a big class itself is quite a task since the children are so young.”
Infrastructure is another constraint. Not all schools have large classrooms that allow space for movement-based or play-based activities. “Imagine a standard classroom, built for the board-and-chalk method. Now think how will I be able to get 45 of my class students to move around for activities prescribed in the workbook,” Nirikshitha asks.
For Ponnamma and Ranjani, infrastructure and strength don’t pose issues. Both of them admit to having only 20-25 students in their multigrade classrooms. But in their cases, even basic logistics slow the lesson down.
Since the programme began, students have had a specific textbook and a workbook for each subject. For young children, navigating through two books turns into a challenge. These teachers, therefore, admit to spending additional time in helping them turn to the right page and follow instructions. What should be an interactive session turns into time spent managing materials. This concern was also voiced in the state’s report titled ‘Evaluating Ennum Ezhuthum — A Study on Time-on-Task with the new pedagogical approach in Government Elementary Schools in Tamil Nadu.’
The report also points to an academic concern among teachers. Since the programme demands considerable attention be given to students who need to catch up on foundational skills, this sometimes leaves less time for children who are already at grade level. In multigrade classrooms, balancing these needs is demanding, the study outlines. Even so, under Ennum Ezhuthum, the framework continues to evolve. Continuous assessments, regular feedback from teachers and yearly revisions by the State Planning Commission aim to address gaps in implementation.
Ponnamma, who is an RE (representative) for her district under Ennum Ezhuthum, reports, “After the previous academic year, we represented some teachers’ problems with executing certain activities in class. They took our feedback and omitted those activities. This shows that the team is committed to helping us as much as they are aiming to help our students.”