will help her catch up in school my school was closed when i was in class iii i am looking forward to the additional help says the daughter of daily wagersthe state plans to have illam thedi kalvi centres where children will be taught after school through experiments and other activities reallife experiments and the informal nature of the programme will allow students to raise doubts that are otherwise left unasked a school education official says volunteers under the illam thedi kalvi scheme will not be part of schools they will complement what is taught in class the centres under the scheme are expected to start functioning from the first week of december and the volunteers will be selected after thorough background checksthe word about the illam thedi kalvi scheme is being spread in an innovative way the government has created 413 folk arts groups who will start an awareness campaign among students from november 23 across the state the districts where the pilot project has begun the campaign style is like a surprise show of laughter and learning for instance at naduveerapattu a village 7km from tambaram volunteers performed a dance and drama at the local bus stand a few of them with drums made their way through the bylanes with a banner to announce the street play about the new scheme to gather a crowd for the final announcement about the scheme the street play sends out the message through songs and jokes about the loss of learning during the pandemic addiction to gadgets and touch upon innovative learning methods in which students learn by counting starssister josephine headmistress of rcm primary school in tharkkas near dharkast says many of her students could not afford smartphones more than 90 of them have basic phones so it was not possible to conduct online classes we gave them weekly assignments and asked them to watch kalvi tv she saysk kurinji a teacher working at a government school near guduvanchery said a statewide government intervention programme is mandatory as some students have forgotten to read and write in the past 18 months if the learning gap is not bridged now these students will be the potential dropouts in future as they may not be able to cope so having someone to help them with their lessons would be ideal she says especially since twoteacher schools cannot ensure individual attention to students