CHENNAI: For many tribal students in Tamil Nadu, getting good education would mean walking long distances to reach schools or staying away from their families for months in residential schools. Lack of access to internet facilities and mobile network and challenging socio-economic conditions are the other factors that would weigh them down. But overcoming these challenges, 15 students from TN’s Eklavya Model Residential School in Chennai have cleared the highly competitive Joint Entrance Examination (Main) exam and are now preparing for JEE (Advanced).
The students, who have cleared the first hurdle for a place in premier institutions such as IITs and NITs, have set an example for other students from remote areas. R Hariharan, who scored 81.33% in JEE (Main), was a student of EMRS at Sengarai in Kolli Hills in Namakkal.
As per the rank list put out by the state tribal welfare department, the student hailing from Malayali tribal community has scored the top mark in JEE among tribal students in the state. “Apart from studying for Class 12 exam, our teachers made us refer additional books from the school library. This helped us clear the exam. The teachers also motivated us to apply for competitive exams,” Hariharan said.
M Bhoomika from the same school scored 73.15%. “My father is a lorry driver and my mother is a housewife. My parents enroled me in the residential school to help me concentrate on my studies better. We took several mock tests to get ourselves trained to complete the JEE exam on time,” Boomika said.
The students are currently undergoing coaching at the 45-day special residential programme of the school education department to help them clear Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced). They are part of 271 government school students who were chosen for the programme. “We study all three subjects --- physics, chemistry and mathematics --- every day here. Teachers help us understand the concepts better and we also go through previous year question papers,” said S Vengateswaran of Jawadhu Hills who studied at the EMRS in Pudhurnadu in Vellore district.
Eklavya Model Residential Schools are for tribal students in Classes 6 to 12 in blocks with more than 50% ST population and at least 20,000 tribal population. Established on over 15 acres of land, more than 95% of the students studying in these schools belong to Scheduled Tribe communities.
“This year, we asked the teachers in EMRS schools to give special guidance to students who were interested in taking up competitive examinations to join higher education institutions and the initiative had produced good results. The tribal students have also performed well in Class 12 examinations as six out of eight tribal schools in the state had registered 100% pass. We are planning include extracurricular activities like art and music by appointing specialised teachers from next year,” a top department official said.