CHENNAI: The School Education Department has been promoting learning habits among students and have been initiating various schemes in schools to encourage them to pick up books in schools.

For this, the department implemented the Vasippu Iyakkum scheme (reading movement) in July, through which libraries would be set up in classrooms of government schools.

However, several teachers claim that the goal of this initiative would be lost due to poor implementation, lack of books and students being overloaded with activities. Besides this, teachers say that they do not have the required time to track the reading habits of students.

For the reading session, all government and government-aided schools were directed to allocate one library period in a week. Besides this, every day, teachers were requested to give 20 minutes after lunch for students to read newspapers.

Though a few schools in Chennai and neighbouring districts that DT Next interacted with agreed on following this routine, most Corporation schools in the city, and schools in districts said they seldom track the reading habit or implement Vasippu Iyakkum.

“With several non-academic works thrust upon us and non-teaching staff, there is no time to track the initiative. We have the library period every week, where students pick up books to read, but for proper implementation, we need more time,” pointed out a Tiruvallur government teacher.