Chess moves into TN classrooms

Updated on: Thursday, January 05, 2012

Tamil Nadu has adopted Gujarat’s strategy to introduce chess in all schools in a bid to improve cognitive skills of students. The initiative, to be launched from next academic year, is aimed at exposing students, especially those from “educationally backward” districts, to the basics of the game.

A senior education department official said the state was following up on the announcement made by chief minister J Jayalalithaa in August 2011 to start the practice in government and aided schools. The inspiration was the “chess in schools” programme run by the World Chess Federation (FIDE), whose president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov had met Jayalalithaa earlier in the year.

“It (the chess programme) will give children in the seven to 17 age group an opportunity to test their skills. Training will be given to physical education teachers and one or two others in each school so they can train the children,” said additional chief secretary TS Sridhar.

Members in the chess fraternity welcomed the move as a step towards promoting the game although many are skeptical about its gains. Such mass programmes may be useful to initiate children into the game, but are not known to throw up grandmasters, said one player. Gujarat too had introduced the game in schools, copying a model that was widely prevalent in the old Soviet bloc.

“This year, five districts have been identified for the programme,” said Muralimohan, secretary of the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association. “We will help the schools by helping their coordinators learn chess. It is a compulsory exercise,” he said. However, chess will not be part of the formal curriculum. Training modules for instructors on the lines of Fide’s chess-in-schools programme will be incorporated.

Chess moves into TN classrooms

More Education news