Partners in Implementation

UNICEF        UNICEF has continuously endeavored to upgrade and assist the system of education in enhancing teacher's efficiency and effectiveness through various training courses at state level. SSA and UNICEF have joined together to undertake wide range of activities on quality education, especially on Early Learning of language through activities, English phonetics and Developing Arithmetic Skills and Usage of SLM Kit along with a review of the impact of such training sessions. English language learning has become a necessity in the present scenario. The role of primary teachers is crucial in teaching English since they not only introduce the concepts of language but also create an attitude towards English. In association with British council, 10 days training was given. During 2014-15, UNICEF partly funded the training of Master Trainers at State Level for English, SLM Kit usage and also Sports and Games training in KGBVs. These trainings encouraged the teachers to instill a positive attitude among the children. In 2015-16, UNICEF is funding an Early Intervention Programme for children with special needs in partnership with the Maduram Narayanan Centre. This involves training of teachers and installing a monitoring system to track the progress of children. UNICEF also supports the WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) programme in Government schools in Krishnagiri District.

Early Literacy Programme (ELP) – British Council        Early literacy training Programme jointly offered by SSA Tamilnadu and British Council.  The initiative broadly aims to improve the quality of teaching of English in primary classrooms in Tamilnadu.  The course materials were designed to be as practical as possible.  The course was highly interactive with many group work tasks in turn develops teachers understanding of new practices.  Visual aids were given to support for better understanding. This training was given to 300 BRTEs at state level in four phases. The master trainers were split into two batches each attended totally ten days of training in two phases. Unlike other trainings, this one was directly given by the Master Trainers to the teachers at grass-root level  by skipping the second level cascading at district level in order to avoid the transmission loss. The training was cascaded in ‘Day release pattern’ that a batch of teachers getting trained in a particular day of the week went back to schools and practiced it in the classroom and then attended the training in the same day of the next week. Thus the primary teachers were given training in this pattern which helped them to try out immediately in the classroom what they had learnt in the training and discussed the outputs and impacts during reflection of the next day release. This new pattern paved the way for the teachers for home work as well as class work which lead to review and refinement of the desired quality.

Awareness on Non Communicable Disease - TNHSP An awareness programme given to middle school students studying in Government & Government Aided schools, supported by Tamil Nadu Health System Project.  From 2012 to 2015 each year this programme is in vogue to create awareness among young children. Awareness programme given Talk in Morning assembly regarding cardio vascular diseases On diabetes On smoking Ill effects of smoking and consumption of fried food Need to  reduce salt   consumption and reuse of oil for frying Healthy diets

Training on basic computer skills – Partnership with Microsoft Project Shiksha Programme Project Shiksha aims to accelerate computer literacy in India by providing a program which includes software solutions, comprehensive training for teachers and students, development of world class IT curriculum and recognition for exceptional teachers. For this, Microsoft works in partnership with state government, wherein the government is responsible for sending teachers for training, while Microsoft conducts comprehensive training programs at 9 locations provided by the state government. The basic course includes topics like the Windows Operating System, Networking, MS Paint, MS PowerPoint, MS Word, MS Excel, and Internet. A lot of emphasis is given on creating lesson plans for class room teaching. At the end of the training program teachers have the ability to enhance their IT literacy, to use computers in teaching – learning process and to promote the usage of ICT in school administration. Every year teachers are trained by Microsoft and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.  90,500 teachers have been trained to use computers and Projectors as learning aid to teach children since 2005.