At a time when government schools are struggling to compete with private schools to enrol students, a government school at Kattumannarkovil in the district has launched an intensive campaign by offering incentives to attract students to their school.
“Incentive of ₹2,000 for students enrolled in class VI. Admit your children here. This is a model school and alma mater for several stalwarts who had their education here. This is an ideal school that offers the best education to children who are slow learners,” the campaign slogans read.
Smart classrooms, stress-free education, spacious and well equipped library, free bus passes for all students, incentive for students, free coaching for NEET, protected drinking water among others are the special features of this school, reads a pamphlet of the Kattumannarkovil Government Boys Higher Secondary School.
The school which was started in 1927, had a good strength in the formative period. It had a maximum strength of 3,500 students from classes VI to XII a couple of years back.
However, the strength started dwindling since then, particularly after 2017. The school has now 360 students on its rolls.
A number of private matriculation schools had mushroomed in the vicinity and they had succeeded in weaning away the students.
This was when the 22 teachers decided to turn around the fortune of the school to increase admission.
The school has children coming largely from poor and disadvantaged sections of society.
“We decided to restore the faith in public education. Finding that there was poor response from parents for enrolling their children in class VI, the teachers volunteered to mop up money out of their savings and offer incentive of ₹2,000 to parents enrolling their children,” said A.S. Raji, assistant headmaster of the school.
Last year, the school teachers offered ₹1,000 each to 11 students who were enrolled in class VI. We decided to increase the incentive and around seven students have enrolled so far, Mr. Raji said.
“We want to ensure that the children from the villages do not miss out the chance and they are enrolled in good numbers,” the AHM said.
As the new academic year commenced, the teachers made multiple visits to the surrounding villages urging all parents to ensure admission of their children in the government school.
The teachers also distributed pamphlets containing the special features of the school door-to-door in the villages. The teachers decided to offer incentive for admission to class VI as the enrolment was very poor when compared with the other sections.
The school had seven sections in class VI but it has now been reduced to a single section due to poor enrolment.
The efforts paid off and seven students have enrolled so far while more students are likely to join this year, said a teacher.
