Aikiyam School
Aikiyam School (formerly New Creation) is a school for children from Auroville's local villages. It serves children of pre-kindergarten age through 8th grade.
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History
Aikiyam School started in the early 1980s. It was then called New Creation School, and was later renamed New Creation Bilingual School as classes were given in both English and Tamil. Originally it was a small boarding school for children from the traditional and impoverished village of Kuilapalayam, where the only mode of transport besides walking was by bullock cart, or, for the better off, by bicycle. Today both the village and the school have changed.
Approach, Methods and Curricula
Presently, Aikiyam School is a day-school with a curriculum including all of the standard academic subjects as well as art, music, dancing, physical education, computer education, carpentry and crafts. The school also has a program for children with special needs. All tuition, educational supplies, nutritious snacks and mid-day meals are provided free of charge, although parents are asked to donate to the school if they can.
Classes are small and the majority of permanent teachers are Tamil, with a few international teachers as well. The school relies partly on help from international volunteer teachers, especially for developing fluency in English. Since 2005 the school has a management team that works in close collaboration with the school’s principal and teachers.
In 2007 the school received provisional affiliation for a period of three years from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). Later this affiliation was extended until March 2016. The CBSE program promotes creative education at all levels through the application of learning by doing. Being a CBSE school means that the children will no longer have to sit for State Board exams based on rote learning in grade eight but will write exams approved by CBSE in grade ten at New Era Secondary School (NESS), an Auroville-run CBSE high school for children from both the villages and Auroville. For those children who want to go to a State Board high school instead of continuing the CBSE curriculum at NESS, Aikiyam School is entitled by CBSE to give a recognised school transfer certificate.
Students
Aikiyam serves 260 children from the villages near Auroville, with classes from pre-crèche to grade 8. There are around 20 children in each class. Most children are from economically disadvantaged families.
Articles
Contact
- Location: New Creation
- Phone: 0413-262-2358, 894-019-3339
- E-mail: assg@auroville.org.in
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