In a bid to bridge the gap between government and private school students in Tamil Nadu, the State School Education Department and the State Council for Education Training and Research are set to roll out a 'spoken English' module as a part of the curriculum. The School Education Minister KA Sengottaiyan on Wednesday will be launching a spoken English guide that will be used for this programme.

"We keep hearing complaints that government school students miss out on several opportunities as their communication skills are not on par with children who go to private schools," said a senior official from the School Education Department. Despite having the competent subject knowledge, students often lag behind even in college as they struggle to communicate well in English, the official said adding that this initiative will also break the stereotype that government school students cannot converse well in English.

The initiative has been largely welcomed by parents and students."Introducing a spoken English class will be extremely useful for students. However, the training should be conducted by specialised instructors and not the existing teachers itself. Many government school teachers are good in the subjects they teach, but they too have a problem communicating fluently in English," said S Arumainathan, President of the Tamil Nadu Students-Parents Welfare Association. According to an order issued by the department on Tuesday, students will get weekly training on soft skills including communication from their respective English teachers. "In the first week of December, three teachers, who are Key Resource Persons from each district will receive a spoken English training. Following this, they will train all English teachers in turn," said an official from the SCERT.

The government order has directed schools to formulate a new time-table integrating this module for all students from class 1-9. Students from class 1-5 will receive a weekly training of 90 minutes, which will include, 40 minutes of activity-based training on spoken English, 40 minutes to watch Kalvi TV and 10 minutes to do activities based on content watched on the TV channel. Students from classes 6-9 will receive spoken English training for 45 minutes a week, the order said.