Education Programme for weak students

KOCHI: To boost the performance of weak students, the Directorate of Higher Secondary Education has revamped its remedial education programme. “From the current academic year onwards Rs 375 will be spent on each student and 5,333 students will benefit from the ‘Quality Improvement Programme’. A training of minimum 15 days will be offered to the selected students and `25 will be spent on his or her expenses each day - Rs 10 for taking photo copies, `10 for refreshments and Rs 5 for conveyance. The budget for the scheme has been increased form Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh as there are 178 new schools this year,” joint-director Anil Kumar said.  The training will commence from January, 2012 and teachers will volunteer the additional work. Classes will be held before and after the regular class hours and during the holidays. The training can be extended beyond 15 days, he said.Forty-one schools, both the government and the aided, have been selected from the 68 schools identified across the state. Of this, the majority of schools are from from Kasargod (nine) followed by seven each in tribal and rural pockets of Palakkad and Idukki districts. “The dearth of permanent teachers is the main reason for the poor performance of students in these regions,” he said. No school has been identified in Thrissur and Kozhikode districts, he said. Last year, from the allocation of Rs 15 lakh, Rs 10,000 was given to 150 schools that registered below 50 per cent pass. But it was too less to get anything done as the number of weak students vary in each school and the monitoring was difficult. That is why the scheme has been changed, he said.The district panchayats will also keep a tab on the programme, he said. “The programme has certainly helped as the number of schools with less than 50 per cent marks have come down to 68. This year we hope to achieve much better results,” said a few teachers.