CHENNAI: Soon, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) concepts will be taught in government middle schools, with help of mobile labs, across the state. The initiative ‘STEM on Wheels’ aims to help foster curiosity about science. It is being implemented on a pilot basis in 67 schools in the state and is expected to be launched by Chief Minister MK Stalin by the end of November, said officials.
While the school education department is in the process of training 12,000 teachers for this purpose, the department will also rope in volunteers for the programme. “In a meeting held in the past three months, teachers provided suggestions on how to make teaching science and maths more effective. This has been taken into account while designing experiments,” said a school education department official.
The STEM ambassadors, which will include the teachers and volunteers, will conduct classes for groups of 50-60 students once a month. The number of classes would be increased if there are more students. A mobile application is being designed.
Committees will be formed at the block, district and state levels to ensure that the programme is implemented effectively in government schools. The district-level panel will be headed by the chief educational officers, and include district educational officers, high and higher secondary school headmasters and block resource teacher educators and resource persons from organisations.
As part of the programmes, the students will be taken on field trips to nearby scientific institutions. “While there were attempts to provide STEM education in select government schools before, this initiative with mobile labs will done uniformly across all the schools,” said a senior education department official.