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 I have gone past that Corporation School in Alwarpet several times and have always seen groups of students, most without footwear, loitering on the road, jumping onto passing buses and generally at their unruly best. A visit to the school wasn't encouraging either, what with broken benches, non-functioning lab equipment, water scarcity, dirty toilets, shabbiness everywhere. But that morning I was surprised to see both students and school spruced up and everything in impeccable order. The reason for the miraculous change was announced in a banner. It was the inauguration of the Lions Club's Golden School
programme.
 The programme, backed by Lions Club International, aims at upgrading 12 selected Corporation Schools and two Government Schools in Chennai to the standard of a model school in one year's time. To begin with, in-depth studies of the schools and students are planned. Border line students, the regular failures and those who fall just short of their best performance would be identified, their difficult subjects and reasons behind poor performance analyzed and the needed extra coaching given. Upgrading the infrastructure and environment (auditoriums, halls for noon meal scheme, lab facilities,
 digging of bore wells wherever necessary, planting saplings and cleanliness), conducting personality development courses, imparting extra teaching skills to teachers, health and hygiene education also form part of this "Nammakku Naame Thittam". The Lions Club expects to spend Rs. 2.5 lakh per school.
We have seen a number of similar programmes for these deprived schools and students by several agencies in the past, but they have made little difference. Like them, will this programme also fizzle out after the inauguration? Ln.M.S.Raghavan, District Governor, is confident. "This will be the only function to be held under the Golden School Programme. The rest is only action. After one year, we will review the results." If the desired results are to be achieved, much work needs to be done, particularly with the teaching staff. Enquiries show that the schools needed quite a bit of persuasion even to accept the idea of extra coaching for students after school hours by their own teachers. Of course, there was
 no question of considering the Club's offer to enlist the help of successful teachers from other schools under the Club's own management.
It therefore needs to be seen how the efforts and money spent in upgrading these schools will pay off one year from now. ChennaiOnline will no doubt join the Lion's Club then in assessing the Golden School Programme to see if the selected schools have, indeed, evolved into model schools and, if not, why?
Akshaya
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