Students of corporation schools are most vulnerable to water borne and communicable diseases. DC visited several corporation schools in Chennai and found appalling sanitation conditions prevailing in those schools. Students in the north Chennai region were the worst affected.

Good sanitation conditions with proper drinking water facilities remain a distant dream for many children in corporation schools in the city. The air is filled with the stench of the toilets that wafts across the corridors and the classrooms. The corporation, it seems, has done very little to provide these children with a healthy learning environment.

Meanwhile, students in these schools have even stopped using the toilets. “I never enter the toilets because they rarely clean it. The bathrooms stink, so I wait until I get home to relieve myself,” said a student. If the authorities remain callous, students are most likely to contract infections and diseases like kidney stones.

Thanks to the some philanthropists, some schools in south Chennai have access to good drinking water and relatively better sanitation. On enquiry, many teachers in the schools complained about dereliction of duty by contract sweepers and scavengers. “The sweepers are paid very little and most of them are very old. How can we expect them to work full time, and come regularly?” a headmaster rued.

In some schools, the teachers say that the unruly students who vandalise the school property are to blame for the state of these corporation schools. “We cannot just blame the students. The society has changed in many ways and it is time for our community to evolve and cater to the needs of students. We need to give them more than textbook knowledge to keep them occupied,” said N. Thamarai Kannan, Tamil Nadu graduate teachers associations.

A disgruntled parent said, “We are not asking them for international facilities, all we need is very basic sanitary conditions”. When contacted, a senior corporation official said, “We will soon take action as we are planning to employ contract workers.”

Homework spoils joy of learning

Ms Padmini’s five-year-old daughter complains of neck pain. She says is unable to do her written homework for more than half an hour. The UKG kid has to write one to ten in words and any two numbers on one full page.

“Her school in Velachery gives homework in three subjects — Maths, English and EVS. She also has to write on two other subjects. By the time she finishes the three, she often complains of neck pain as she bends down and writes. I know it’s too much for the kid but when I enquired about it with mothers from other schools they too said their schools gave excessive homework,” said Padmini.

Instead of playing and listening to stories, the five-year-old is forced to write her homework sitting in a room. A parent of another reputed school in the city said her LKG kid was given missing numbers and ‘between numbers’ as homework apart from alphabets. “In fact, I changed the school as she started complaining of wrist pain. Moreover, the teacher had written in her notebook that she was a slow learner,” said the parent Ms Lavanya.

As there’s no prescribed syllabus for kindergarten kids, each school sets its own syllabus. Ms Anuradha, another parent said, “My daughter Abitha does only activities such as colouring and matching. Though she has to do homework, it takes only ten or 15 minutes.”

A kindergarten school principal, on condition of anonymity, said, “These days kids are very smart and pick up alphabets and numbers quite easily. We do teach kids from one to hundred but not at a stretch. Everything is taught over a period of time. The syllabus depends on the school.”

Aparna S. Gharpure, a child psychologist said, “Children are sharp and they can easily understand letters and numbers. Researches show kids are good at picking up languages. Problems arise only when a kid is forced to write and he/she will definitely show resistance. Homework is an extended learning but at the same time it should not take away their play-time.”

Experts demand change in teaching style

DC correspondent
Chennai, Aug. 5

Even as teachers complain about the growing unruliness of adolescents as a cause of concern, experts urge the Chennai corporation to change its teaching methodologies, and to include more extra curricular activities besides physical education to help mould the students in a positive way.

“We need to give them more physical education. One of the reasons for their unruliness is that they are expressing the stress in negative way. Exercise is very important to help them get rid of the pent up energy ” said psychologist M. Lalitha.

Also, when private schools have active Parents Teachers Association (PTA), the body is nearly defunct in most corporation schools. Many teachers said that parents were mostly unwilling to attend these meetings as many were worried about losing their daily wage.

“Parents teachers meetings are necessary to help both the teachers and parents understand the students’ behaviour. With cooperation from the parents, we can root out the weaknesses of the students,” said a teacher.