Textbook Problems in Tamil Nadu in July 2011
The new Tamil Nadu State government, which took over in May, refused to pass out brand new, uniform school textbooks prepared under the previous government. They went to court to try and prevent distribution of the textbooks, and they lost. They then appealed to the Supreme Court. At Miracle Garden, school started mid-June without any text books – teachers had been told to just wing it. On July 22nd, the Supreme Court denied the appeal and told the govt. to distribute the text books by August 2nd. On July 29th, the deadline was extended to Aug. 5th. Hopefully, as you read this letter, our MG kids will be reading their textbooks for this school year.
News taken from the following links:
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/07/20/in-tamil-nadu-school-without-textbooks/http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2281875.ece?homepage=true
http://zeenews.india.com/news/tamil-nadu/sc-extends-deadline-for-text-books-distribution_722801.html
One positive change in the new school textbooks, is that there will be a “uniform” curriculum throughout the state. This is similar to the Common Core Curriculum or Core Standards we find here in the US. And a recent addition to this uniform curriculum was the introduction of recommended reading books that supplement the classroom curriculum for each grade level, both in English and in Tamil. Such books have been around in the US for many years, but are a recent addition to the Tamil Nadu state curriculum.
Here is the awesome part of this story - God, in His infinite wisdom, inspired the Director of Sunday School at Bethany UMC in Madison, WI, to collect funds TO PURCHASE CURRICULUM-RELATED READING BOOKS in India for our children. And this inspiration came in early Spring, before the new curriculum was released and before any of the MG teachers even knew about the supplemental books. Now Bethany has helped us purchase these supplemental books, thus blessing our children with reading material that many other schools in Tamil Nadu probably will not have this year. Thank you Bethany UMC Sunday School for listening to the leading of God in your collections and for blessing our orphans with your gift.
