CHENNAI: For C Prabha, the dream of becoming a teacher began young — with a piece of chalk and her handwriting.
Raised by a single mother with the support of her uncle and aunt, Prabha studied in a government school. Her handwriting often caught her teacher’s attention, who would ask her to write on the board. “Because I had good handwriting, teachers often asked me to write on the board. I would imagine myself as a teacher and loved writing with chalk,” she recalled. Years later, Prabha, now 42, is a BT English teacher at the Government Urdu Higher Secondary School in Hosur. By now, her understanding of being a teacher has grown beyond the blackboard.
A prominent challenge faced by government school students is that many lag behind in literacy and numeracy even as they pass out of primary school. Long before the School Education Department started THIRAN, a programme for students in Classes 6 to 8 in 2025, Prabha had already identified the problem. Rather than allowing students to struggle at school, she looked for scientifically-backed ways to help them learn at their own pace. That effort eventually grew into a Literacy Intervention Centre, a space to strengthen foundational literacy and numeracy at her school, built with CSR funds in June 2025.
Prabha followed her childhood passion and joined the School Education Department as a secondary grade English teacher in 2005, after completing her D.TEd.
But learning didn’t halt once she became a teacher. She believed that continuous learning was the key to staying a good teacher. She completed her BA and MA in English and was promoted as a BT Assistant in 2011. Instead of relying only on conventional classroom instruction, she turned to activity-based learning to involve students in the process.
During her stint at Giriyanapalli Government School in 2011-12, she set up a language laboratory with just two laptops and her own iPad. “Students here had to learn Telugu, Tamil and English, and many struggled. The language lab helped them learn words by breaking them into syllables,” she said.
Continuing to learn has been her mantra throughout her career. She pursued a postgraduate programme in Teaching and Learning from the International Baccalaureate at Christ University, Bengaluru, where she learnt about inquiry-based and student-centred teaching. She also trained online in literacy intervention strategies through Ascend Smarter Intervention, Colorado, and completed a course on Specific Learning Disability in Mumbai.
The more she learnt, the more closely she looked at the students in front of her. “Some children struggled with basic learning skills. I thought about what I could do to help them,” Prabha said.
In the intervention centre at the school she works in, learning happens on almost every surface. Phonics patterns, reading rules, Tamil and Urdu grammar tips and mathematical formulae cover the walls. Flashcards, reading strips and other handmade learning tools help the students learn.
The centre uses various assessments to identify each child’s learning gaps and develop personalised remedial plans. Even the furniture was carefully chosen to be rearranged comfortably for group activities or individual learning. A television with AI features creates digital content, displays interactive worksheets and videos. The centre brings together lessons from Prabha’s teaching career and the courses she pursued. “Being a government school teacher for more than two decades helped me apply what I learnt in courses to address the problems of students”, she said.
To let her ideas and materials transcend the four walls of the classroom, she shares worksheets, phonics charts, reading tools and writing templates for teachers on Instagram and WhatsApp. She was recently selected for the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program in the US as one of the teachers representing India for 2026-27. Her goal to make structured and inclusive literacy practices a reality in government schools across Tamil Nadu is being realised one step at a time as she works each day towards making learning fun for every student in her orbit.
(Edited by Jotsna Bellani)