Chennai: For MGR Nagar Government Higher Secondary School and Ashok Nagar Government Girls Higher Secondary School, the visit of foreign delegations are not new. Each year representatives from various countries used to visit these two institutions, study the teaching methodology and implement them in their respective schools.
Recently, a Malaysian delegation comprising 17 headmasters from Tamil schools (Seramban district, Negeri Sembilan), and two officers from Ministry of Education visited the schools to study the education model followed here.
”The delegation was welcomed by students representing Scouts & Guides, NSS, NCC and Junior Red Cross. They then attended school prayer and were happy to see the way it is being handled,” said MGR Nagar Government HSS headmaster G Shanmugavel.
”The representatives from Malaysia attended the Tamil class conducted by Vijayalakshmi. They interacted with students and were impressed by the teaching methodology, including spoken English class,” he said.
The team visited the facilities available in school including Atal Tinkering Lab (ATL), high-tech computer lab and cloud computing lab. ATL is an initiative of Central Government of India to create an environment of scientific temperament, innovation and creativity amongst students. They also learnt about the DIKSHA App facility at ATL, where students can download the subjects and learn themselves, the headmaster said.
Later, the delegation watched sports activities including boxing, volleyball, throw ball, karate and silambam. ”They were impressed to see that the school is giving equal importance to education and co-curricular activities,” Shanmugavel said.
”We were keen to learn a lot more about the teaching methodologies used in classrooms here. On observing classes here, we noticed that the teachers use a lot of teaching aids as well as interactive activities which we want to follow as well,” according to Arumai Nayagam, District Education Officer, Seramban district, Malaysia.
”There are several new techniques, which we hope to take back to the primary classes in Tamil schools there. The students here are extremely confident and we have enjoyed our interactions with them so far,” said Krishnan Perumal, Headmasters’ Association leader from Seramban district.
”So far representatives from three countries – Finland, Singapore and Malaysia have visited our school. This is because of our good infrastructure, free education and implementation of all government schemes. There are 902 students studying at MGR Nagar GHSS,” said Shanmugavel.
At Ashok Nagar GGHSS, the Malaysian delegation visited the labs and interacted with teachers, said school headmistress R C Saraswathi.