Practical classes going on in the Corporation school

IN the recent past, quite a few students of a Corporation school, who come from economically weaker sections of society, have dropped out to work as child labourers in the nearby Gandhi Market which has been identified by Childline as one of the vulnerable zones to witness child labour. Of late, the school has seen a reverse in the trend when it comes to dropout rates. The school in question is Dr Maduram Memorial Corporation Higher Secondary School located on Eastern Boulevard Road in the vicinity of the said market. As the school in the recently concluded class XII board examination posted cent percent results, as a reward for the both the teachers and students, and to encourage more children to enrol themselves as students in this school, the civic body spruced up the infrastructure of the school at an estimated cost of Rs 1.05 crore.

With the improved facilities that are absent in private schools, the Corporation school aims at improving the numbers of new admissions from the ensuing academic year. Dr Maduram Memorial Corporation Higher Secondary School with a strength of 188 students includes 94 boys and 94 girls studying from class VI to class XII. They see less people enrolling in the school even though it is the only government higher secondary school in the area. However, with just 29 class XII students taking ex-amination in March earlier the year, all the students have successfully cleared their subjects, thus making the school one of the few government schools to achieve cent percent results.

Gandhi Market, a hotspot for child labour Compared to the rural parts of the district, city limits, particularly Gandhi market and bazaar localities were identified to have witnessed more numbers of child labour instances. Most of the rescued minors were said to be working in fruit stalls, fish markets, and even as waiters in makeshift roadside eateries.

Recognising the feat, and also to improve the infrastructure of the school, Tiruchy Corporation earlier this year sanctioned t1.05 crore to the school for constructing two laboratories and three classrooms, and also to demol-ish an old school block where basket-ball court for school girls is to be constructed. Speaking to Express, school head-master S Veeramani said, "The two laboratories built in an area of 2,750 sq.ft are spacious enough for the stu-dents to conveniently observe the practical sessions compared to the earlier ambience. With infrastructure being given a shot in the arm, we will continue to focus on preventing drop-outs and to improve new admissions." At an estimated cost of Z55 lakh, as three classrooms and two sanitary complexes separately for boys and girls were established in the school a few months back, the incinerator fa-cility has been made available for girl students to dispose of their sanitary napkins, which is even a miss in pri-vate schools. Corporation sources said that to further improve the infrastructure of the school which has one of the high-est dropout rates in the city, the dis-mantled old school block is likely to be converted to a basketball court for girls. With the school infrastructure be-ing spruced up, now the school man-agement has planned to improve the awareness measures to rope in more admissions from the nearby areas tar-geting Below Poverty Line (BPL) fami-lies to admit their minor wards to en-rol in the school. The school management has sought the civic body to provide furniture.
Source epaper. newindianexpress. com//c/21326074