Officials mull ways to improve corporation schools’ performance

COIMBATORE: A day after Class X results exposed the sorry side of the city corporation schools, the school education department on Thursday decided to provide counselling to the students of such schools from this June as an initial step to better the pass percentage and improve the district’s standing in the state rank list. Other corrective measures to be implemented include repeated split tests and special classes.
A decision in this regard was taken at a meeting held with the headmasters of government, government-aided, corporation and adi dravidar schools. The meeting was convened to chart out steps to be taken from this academic year to improve the district’s pass percentage in the Class X board exams.

While the district managed to improve its ranking in the Class XII examination to 8 from 10 previous year, its position slipped to 15 from 11 in the Class X examination.

The major reason for this was cited as the poor pass percentage of corporation and municipal schools in the Coimbatore revenue district. The pass percentage of corporation schools had come down by more than five, said the chief educational officer (CEO), P Ayyannan, who headed the meeting.

“If we could increase the pass percentage of corporation schools, the overall percentage of the district will naturally go up,” he said and added that the number of government schools, which attained 100 % pass, has gone up to 40 this year from 36 last year.

For this, officials think, it’s important to bring about a change in the mindset of the corporation school students. Hence, they have come up with the idea of providing counselling sessions to the students as soon as the schools reopen.

“We are planning to rope in psychologists and two faculties per school,” the CEO said, adding that psychologists with the district institute of education and training, and college professors would provide counselling to the students.

“We will work to ensure that at least 50% government schools achieves 100% pass. We are also planning to conduct repeated split tests and special classes,” Ayyannan said.

Pointing out that most students had failed in commerce, accountancy and economics in Class XII exams, an official said a separate meeting would be conducted with the teachers handling these subjects to improve the quality of teaching.