Sunday, December 07, 2008
‘Zest 2008’ – a day-long proactive seminar on leadership skills held


Tambaram: School Education Minister Thangam Thennarasu on Saturday said the methods of teaching and curriculum in schools should be in tandem with the changes in society.


Speaking at ‘Zest 2008’ – a day-long proactive seminar on leadership skills at SRM University, Kattankulathur, organised by The Hindu Newspaper in Education Programme along with AIMS Education and the university, he said the State government keeping in line with this trend and providing computers to all the 27,000 primary and middle schools all over Tamil Nadu was a pointer to this.

It helped the students pick up computer skills from a very young age, Mr. Thangam Thennarasu said. Pointing out that each student spent about 25,000 hours in a school in his lifetime, he reminded teachers that they had a great responsibility.

Turning his attention to headmasters, particularly those of government schools, the Minister said school heads should run their institutions like Chief Executive Officers of corporate houses. The headmaster played a crucial role not only in school administration, but also in the outcome of results of public examinations. An analysis showed that schools with very poor results either did not have headmasters or many of them were transferred during the academic year, he said.

Commending the role of The Hindu, AIMS Education and SRM University, the Minister said he was aware of these three institutions’ contribution to advance the cause of education. Mr. Thangam Thennarasu also exhorted teachers to rise to the occasion and to take part in such forums “for your own skill enhancement and to meet the expectations and requirements of students.”

T.R.Pachamuthu, Chancellor, SRM University, said schools should be more liberal so that students are encouraged to ask more questions that would help them become more creative.

P.Sathyanarayanan, Vice-Chancellor, said they were planning to start an academic advisory committee comprising school heads, academicians and experts to mould students when they joined colleges after completing their school education in order to get their feedback. This, he said, would help in improving the quality of education and students’ overall abilities.

Gita Prabhu, Director, AIMS Education and V.Ravi, Senior General Manager, Circulation, The Hindu, spoke on the occasion. Ajayaraj Palasseri, Principal Consultant, Training Workz, made a presentation on leadership skills and interacted with school heads.

Principals, Correspondents and Headmasters from more than 800 schools from all over Tamil Nadu and a few schools from Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh attended the seminar.