Chennai,May 20: Schools in the district have once again proved their mettle by bagging the top ranks, 10 to be exact, in the higher secondary state board examinations.
Noting the trend Chennai residents are putting their children in these schools after high school so they would be able to score marks high enough to be able to get into professional courses.
Two years ago, A Hector put his daughter Marcia, who had finished her Class X board exams, in Kurinji Higher Secondary School in Namakkal.
Sahaya Rani, Marcia’s mother, says, “She was intent on getting into a professional course and we encouraged her.
We heard about the school from a doctor who had sent his child to study there so she would be able to get a medical seat, and she did. So we put Marcia there, too.”
In the Kurinji HS School, nearly 100 of the students in Classes XI and XII are from Chennai.
The principals of schools in districts such as Erode, Karur and Namakkal attribute it to the systematic training provided. They say the teachers finish the portions early and then concentrate on revising the syllabus. M Vaitheeswaran of the school scored the third highest total in the HSC exam.
S Kausalya, headmistress of Sri Vijay Vidyalaya Girls Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Dharmapuri, says, “Here there are no distractions like pubs or discotheques.
We don’t encourage students to visit their friends after school. We keep them occupied the whole day, sometimes from 5.30am to 6pm, so the children are tired by the time they get home. Because we have tests everyday they have to study.”
Sugavanesh of the school scored the second highest mark in the HSC exams this year. The school also got state ranks in biology and computer science. K Satish Kumar, former head of the English department of Kurinji HSS in Namakkal, says, “We also have the best teachers. They come from various districts in the state as they are paid the highest here. It’s also because we take in the best students.”
Admission to the schools is not easy though. Last year, Rathna Kumar, a resident of Chennai who managed to get his son Kumaran admitted to another such popular school called Spic Nagar HSS in Tuticorin, says that the two of them stayed there the day the Class X results were announced so they would lose no time in procuring the application form if the marks were above the school’s cut- off level.
“It was only after we got admission to the school that I was relieved. It’s our dream for our son to become a doctor, and we are confident that if we put him here he will be able to score high enough to bag a seat in a medical college.”
The children are not allowed to have mobile phones or laptops and can visit their parents only once or twice a year.
“Students should be treated as students They may come from affluent families and so may be able to own these gadgets, but here they are made to follow rules,” Satish Kumar says. Parents say that sometimes the pressure on the children is so much that some even drop out of such schools to go back to regular schools that don’t task them as much.
–Agencies