Even as the caste outfits are making their presence felt on the school premises in the volatile Tirunelveli district, Collector K.P. Karthikeyan has devised a scheme, Anbaadum Mundril, to promote love and brotherhood among schoolchildren.
Following in the footsteps of Thoothukudi Superintendent of Police L. Balaji Saravanan, who has instructed all police stations to encourage the public to remove paintings marked to demonstrate caste supremacy in public places, his counterpart in Tirunelveli N. Silambarasan has launched a similar drive in his district.
The district administration, on its part, has launched Anbaadum Mundril to promote love and harmony among the schoolchildren through a range of steps after conducting a comprehensive study of five schools and based on unpleasant happenings on the school premises in the past.
“This psychological initiative, launched recently by Minister for Sports Udhayanidhi Stalin during his visit here, aims at promoting love, harmony, and empathy among schoolchildren. We have selected 45 of the 1,195 government and government-aided schools for this programme which will transform the children’s attitude psychologically while improving their skills since we have roped in psychologists and counsellors from a voluntary organisation besides sourcing support from education, revenue, police, local administration, sports and skill development departments,” says Dr. Karthikeyan, a medical doctor.
Apart from the children, their parents and teachers will get “refined” by this special team. Teachers of 60 schools are to be screened and moulded by the counsellors. “We will evaluate the progress made through this initiative at the end of this academic year and extend it to other schools wherever this intervention is needed. We have planned to carry on this programme for the next five years to create a significant impact,” Dr. Karthikyan said.
This initiative will focus on guarding the children away from liquor and drug abuse by explaining to them through life examples. After pinpointing their skills, the children will be guided properly for strengthening their skills in their area of interest, improving their concentration, career guidance, self-employment and so on.
“‘Since these children should be insulated from the caste outfits, measures have been put in place with the police removing the paintings in public places with caste overtones. Any evil force misguiding the children in the name of caste or religion will be dealt with appropriately as our objective is to create a new society by ensuring love and brotherhood on school premises,” Dr. Karthikeyan said.
