Engineers from Tamil Nadu turned teachers to help children of farmers, MGNREGA workers
These four engineers and friends started taking classes in July after the schools distributed the textbooks.
Four engineers and friends from Tamil Nadu — Arvind, Vignesh, Bhavanishankar, and Sarathas — have turned teachers amidst the pandemic, helping the children of farmers continue their learning during the lockdown.
In the quaint hamlet of Thondaiman Oorani in Pudukottai, Tamil Nadu, these four engineers are working hard to bridge the digital divide in a village which has over 1,500 residents. Most of them are farm labourers and MGNREGA workers, for whom owning a smartphone is a luxury.
For this reason, these aspiring civil servants laid out a timetable outside their houses for the students to attend physical classes in the open. From 10 AM to 2 PM, 12 students studying in Class 10 attend classes, while the next batch of 28 students studying in Class 6 to 9 come after 2 PM, which goes on for about four hours.
These classes started in July after the schools distributed the textbooks.
The engineers-turned-teachers used the village’s open areas as classrooms with a blackboard to teach. They are primarily focussing on students from Class 9 and 10, and conduct weekly tests on every Saturday these two classes.
Image: The New Indian Express
“While preparing for TNPSC exams, we were helped by our seniors. This prompted us to help children belonging to our village,” Aravind told The New Indian Express.
“This is a way of giving back to society. Class 6 to 10 syllabus is very useful for us in our Group 1 exam of TNPSC,” Vignesh, a mechanical engineer, said.
The villagers, too, are very grateful for the efforts of these young engineers.
"Two of my daughters are attending classes every day. I was initially very worried as we could not make them attend online classes. These youths are Godsend for parents," Soundaravalli, a villager, told The Logical Indian.
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Edited by Suman Singh