Tamil Nadu School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi said on Monday that online lessons for students at Kallakurichi Private School, which was vandalized by protesters following the death of a female student , will start from Wednesday.
In particular, police officers were injured in the violent clash that followed the death of the resident on July 11. The school was completely vandalized and several documents including student certificates were burned.
The minister told reporters in Kallakurichi that he had discussions with the district administration to address the learning gap issue affecting students at the vandalized school. The school has 2,694 students under the Tamil Nadu State Board and 500 students under the CBSE.
Poyyamozhi said the education department has identified senior secondary schools, private institutions, colleges and teacher training centers near the vandalized school to temporarily house affected students.
“The District Collector will chair a meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) with members of the Parent-Teacher Association to get their input on the measures the Department of Education plans to implement. That aside, as an immediate measure, we plan to hold online classes for all students starting Wednesday. Students in grades IX-XII will have online lessons for a week and, in the meantime, we will try to organize alternative classrooms for them. So that they can take physics lessons soon. It would help them prepare for board exams,” Poyyamozhi said.
He added that a minimum of eight classrooms would be needed for registered students and four for CBSE students. The Minister also informed that they have shortlisted five institutions that have expressed interest in hosting Kallakurichi School students.
“We organized 50 buses to pick up and drop off students from their places at these schools. The certificates of nearly 3,000 students were destroyed. We plan to deploy a special officer to respond to the grievances of these students and set up a special cell to ensure that students who do not have a duplicate of their certificates can obtain a new copy without any problem,” said Poyyamozhi.
When asked if teachers from the vandalized private school would be deployed to teach students, the minister said they would take a call based on input received at the PTA meeting,
The minister said that the government led by MP Stalin had also decided to provide advice to schoolchildren in view of the alleged increase in cases of suicide among young people.