All public schools in Tamil Nadu will be required to have one period of spoken English class per week. The implementation is in accordance with the curriculum which has changed its primary medium language to English. Implementation will start in January.
Tamil Nadu government has introduced a policy that will require public schools to have one period per week dedicated to spoken English skills. The policy will take effect in January and all public schools will be required to adhere to it. This announcement was made by the School Education Department.
The need for spoken English classes
Tamil Nadu State Council for Educational Research and Training (TNSCERT), in collaboration with teachers and other experts, has prepared modules that will be released on Wednesday. The modules will be used as the guides which these teachers will be following to help their students.
Minister for School Education, Youth Welfare and Sports Development KA Sengottaiyan, will be responsible for launching the project. There will be a training of teachers using a handbook prepared by the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT).
The government has also made plans to have videos in their education platform training on spoken English skills. This will help boost the usage of English in Tamil Nadu.
The plan is to have a 90 minutes school lesson per week for students between class 1 and 5. For classes 6 to 9, the duration of these lessons will be 45 minutes.
Tamil is working hard to raise the level of English skills because it changed the medium of communication to English in 2013. The process was not as smooth as they had anticipated, where students were using other languages such as Tamil for instructions. Teachers were also not trained or equipped enough to handle this transition meaning the process has had hiccups along the way.
The Education Ministry is now committed to addressing this problem by offering extra classes to students. Teachers are also getting retrained again so they can be able to communicate properly. Schools which are yet to implement the English as a medium rule will also be required to transition next year. Therefore, English will be the primary medium of communication for schools in Tamil Nadu.
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