Chennai,  The Tamil Nadu school education department has called for tenders from private companies to make an assessment of the impact of the volunteer-based door-to-door education programme in the state, named Illam Thedi Kalvi (ITK). The study will be conducted from October 2022 to April 2023.

The programme was implemented in the state during the Covid-19 pandemic to bridge the learning gap.

The ITK scheme has more than 2 lakh volunteers in two lakh centres across 92,000 habitations in the state.

These education volunteers teach the students from Classes 1 to VIII for one and a half hours after school in Tamil, English, Science, Maths and Social Science subjects.

The private company which will assess the performance of the ITK scheme will give a report on the students' learning competency in English, Tamil and Mathematics in classes 3, 5 and 8. The retention, absenteeism and enrolment of students in schools after the ITK was implemented will also be a subject of study for the company.

School education officials said that the impact assessment is being done to get a proper feedback on the shortcomings of the project and to take corrective measures.

R. Manikantan, a teacher at a public school in Tiruppur, told IANS, "The scheme is now not relevant as the regular classes have begun. The government should improve the quality of teaching in schools rather than stick to the ITK scheme. It is unnecessary to teach the same subjects immediately after regular classes."

The National Achievement Survey 2021 will be taken as the baseline data for the assessment of the project.