CHENNAI: In a bid to encourage students to improve non-academic abilities, the school education department has asked the headmasters of government and aided schools to ensure that all students in classes 6 to 9 actively participate in at least one/club formed for the purpose.
Various forums including literary club, quiz club, arts club, movie screening club, and Vanavil Mandram for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are available for students. Two periods are being allocated each week for the activities.
All the clubs will be headed by the headmaster, apart from a teacher in charge and a student as secretary. Headmasters should ensure that club activities are conducted each month till February, which will also be overseen by officials inspecting schools.
The schools will also conduct review writing, acting and short film contests, quiz competitions and science exhibitions. A total of 380 students (10 from each district) through block-level and district-level competitions will be chosen to participate in state-level workshops at the end of the academic year.
“While most of these activities were introduced in the middle of the last academic year, we are hoping to streamline these initiatives. As 100 students will also be taken on an educational tour for performing well in these activities, awareness about these activities among students has increased and we expect many of them to actively participate this year,” said a school education department official.