Experts seek to bridge North-South divide

Chennai: Usually, southern and western districts occupy top five places in plus-2 and SSLC results and northern districts lie at the bottom of the list. This year is no different and Virudhunagar district has topped the list in both the exams.

Why southern and western districts perform better and not the northern districts?
There are several factors contributing to the poor performance of northern districts including the socio-economic background of the students and vacant teacher posts.

Nearly 2,000 post-graduate teacher posts are lying vacant in the state. Northern districts such as Vellore, Dharmapuri and Tiruvannamalai have over 1,500 vacancies, an official pointed out.

“Compared to southern districts, northern districts have more students. It is difficult to improve even the few percentages as thousands of the students need to clear the exam,” the official said.

A headmaster from the Vellore district said many students failed in single subject. There is a need to give focus attention to students to improve the pass percentage, he said.  

“Though for several years the trend is continuing in the school education there was no study undertaken by the department of school education to know the reasons,  said Prince Gajendrababu, general secretary, State Platform for Common School System.

“All five southern districts have more government-aided schools. These schools are having teachers for all the subjects.” “Wherever the teacher post is vacant they appoint the teachers through PTA,” he said.

Northern districts have more tribal welfare schools and Adi-Dravida schools along with the government schools. The students from these schools face different issues.

“SCERT and Directorate of Government Examinations should conduct independent studies comparing the northern and southern districts. Whatever the reasons they are finding in the study, they should try to rectify them,” Prince Gajendrababu said.

Sami.Sathiamoorthy, state president, Tamil Nadu High and Higher Secondary Schools Headmasters’ Association pointed out that districts like Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur also fared poorly in the exams. Even Chennai district lies in the middle of the table. “Teachers are coming from the far off places in these districts. They are not able to concentrate on the poor students by way of conducting special classes,” he said.