TIRUCHY: The State School Education Department's special enrolment drive on Vijayadasami – considered the most auspicious day to initiate children into learning – seems to have paid off in the district, with sources mentioning an enrolment of over 100 students in Class 1 alone of government and aided institutions on Wednesday.
The figure, the official said, is higher than the previous year. Among those contributing to the success story is the government elementary school at Edamalaipatti Pudur, which saw the enrolment of 17 students.
The push for extracurricular activities figures among the reasons cited for the higher enrolment. School headmistress H Pushpalatha, while pointing to how the act of giving the institution a makeover by painting it to resemble the Pallavan Express train gained widespread appreciation – including from other schools, stressed that step is only one among the reasons for higher enrolment.
“Various other initiatives we have taken for the students, like teaching them to play the keyboard, skating, and airing them on radio programmes, have helped more in enrolment," she added. Mentioning the enrolment on Wednesday to be at 15 for Class 1 and two for Class 2, the headmistress said, “Last year it was only five students in total and it was poorer than this in the years before that.”
She, however, pointed to the need for more classrooms in the school to accommodate the current student strength of around 800.
While she mentioned a request as having been placed with the authorities, she added that a higher enrolment would have been possible if there were sufficient classrooms. K Prabha, the mother of a student who moved in from a private school last year, said, "We found the education system better than the private school my son was in," she added.
“In addition to the normal admissions, this year we recorded enrolment of many students who shifted from private schools," a School Education Department source said.