State board schools to reopen today

While information had been doing the rounds that schools might have an extended summer break due to rising temperature, State board schools will open as scheduled on Friday, June 1.

High and higher secondary students of government schools will have uniforms in new colours and students of select classes will have textbooks with the new syllabus to look forward to. Chennai Educational district’s Chief Educational Officer S.M. Manoharan said that schools would begin distribution of uniforms and books to students.

The new syllabus will be implemented for Classes I, VI, IX and XI and the School Education Department has already announced that arrangements had been made for the new textbooks to be distributed for students.

Training for teachers

Training sessions for teachers to orient them about the new syllabus are yet to take place. A teacher from a government aided school in Tirunelveli said that while they were yet to get the textbooks in hand, they were aware that the new books come with the extensive use of technology, including QR codes.

“We have been informally told that we need to brush up on how to effectively use smart phones since we would need to access several apps,” he said.

T. Udhayachandran, Additional Secretary of the School Education department, said that the training, a three-day programme, for the State-level resource groups would commence from next week. “They will, in turn, orient master trainers. We will have subject experts as well as authors of the textbooks come and brief them,” he said. Following this, training sessions will be held for teachers.

“We will ensure that the regular functioning of schools and classes do not get disrupted by the teacher training sessions,” he added.