The FINANCIAL — Tata Power, India’s largest integrated power company, has been undertaking several initiatives for the education of the children enabling overall well-being of the communities living in and around its areas of operation. In line with this philosophy, Tata Power’s Jojobera plant has initiated special classes to teach spoken English in two government middle schools of Gadra and Khakripara. Organised in association with the partner NGO, ALIG Educational and Welfare Society (ALIG), the initiative has benefited 385 students ranging from class V to VIII.
Two trained teachers undertook these classes based on a carefully designed module to improve students’ written, spoken and comprehension skills. The results have been encouraging with considerable improvement in reading, writing and making sentences. Now almost 100 percent of the students from all the classes are able to recognise the alphabets and identify words; approximately 45 percent of the students are able to write correctly and around 35 percent of the students are able to frame sentences, which was zero percent in the beginning, according to Tata Sons Ltd.
Speaking about the classes, VV Namjoshi, chief, Jojobera station said: “Various recent surveys have shown that the students have fared poorly in comprehending English. It is important to build ability of students to understand the English language and be able to practice it well, which will benefit them in their future. We, at Tata Power’s Jojobera plant are committed to improve the educational facilities for students in nearby communities. This initiative has given an opportunity to these students to know and understand the language and hence explore other aspects of curriculum through self-learning.”
As testified by different stakeholders – the school principal and local committee members – there is a perceptible increase in the learning level of students with respect to English language.
The special classes were introduced on the basis of a pre-test, which was conducted to assess the level of learning of these students in English language. The results showed low learning level of students, as around 46 percent of the students from class V were unable to recognise alphabets and only 13 percent could recognise words. The results were not much different even for students from classes VI and VII.
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