TIRUCHY: The giant waves swept away hopes of several families when tsunami struck the Keechankuppam Government Middle School in 2004. In a matter of seconds, 80 students of the school drowned. The fortunes of the school were at its lowest ebb for the next few years.
Parents were no longer willing to send their kids to this school as memories of the dead remained fresh in their minds. But that was also the beginning of a sea change for the institution — from a tsunami ravaged structure to a government school that could compete with private matriculation schools in terms of infrastructure.
The man behind this image makeover was none other than the school headmaster R Balu. He wanted to make the school the favourite of locals and made use of technology — the school has projectors, screens, computers and WiFi facility — to bring about the change. And his efforts paid of when the Ministry of Human Resource decided to confer the National Award on Teachers on him. The 50-year-old teacher is one among the 23 teachers selected from the State, to be honoured by President Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi on September 5.
According to Balu, 328 students study in Class I to VIII in the Keechankuppam Government Middle School, which is located barely 500 metres from the Bay of Bengal.
On December 26, 2004, when tsunami ravaged the Nagapattinam coast, the school building was reduced to rubble. After the disaster, the school has been functioning with minimum strength in the neighbouring Akkaraipettai village till 2008. Later, it was rebuilt in the old site.
Twelve years after the disaster, the management of the school, headed by Balu, mooted the idea of commencing the smart classroom facility with the aid of projectors and laptops to woo more students to the school.
“All the nine classrooms of our school were equipped with projectors, speakers, screens and laptops to impart electronic mode of learning. This was made possible by utilising the district administration’s self-sufficiency scheme, at an estimated cost of `7.5 lakh,” Balu told Express.
“A year after the launch of smart classroom facility, enrolment increased by 58 per cent,” Balu added.
After preparing e-curriculum, the school staff went on a door-to-door campaign in Keechankuppam and Akkaraipettai fishing villages to encourage parents to send their wards to the school.
“The award means a lot to the entire school as we started from scratch after an unprecedented natural disaster. At the time of launching smart classrooms with financial contribution from all our teachers, we installed WiFi facility, which is now handy for science teachers to explain the subject with online inputs,” he added.
