Virudhunagar district administration has embaraked upon an ambitious project of putting maximum students of Government schools in institutes of higher education like IIT, NIIT, medicine and Central Universities.

A total of 1,656 Plus Two students of Government schools from across the district have been picked for providing special coaching under the district administration’s innovative project “Thisai” (direction).

“We had given short special training last year that helped 14 students get admission into premium institutes like IIT and NIIT,” said Chief Educational Officer G. Aravidan.

Following its success, District Collector N.O. Sukhaputra asked to give year-long coaching.

“We have already started residential coaching for the 621 students out of the 1,200 students who were willing. The month-long coaching was for preparing students to appear for NEET, JEE (Advance) and CUET,” Mr. Aravindan said.

After the schools reopen the special coaching would be taken up on Saturdays. “The students would undergo the training at select school in each of the 11 blocks in the district,” he said.

Government school teachers would take up the special coaching in various subjects. “We hope the year-long coaching will help the students to crack the entrance examinations and they get into Central Universities and other premium institutions,” said Mr. Aravindan.

The district adminstration has padi the NEET exam fees for 407 students.

A control room has been set up at the collectorate to monitor the progress made by the students.

Meanwhile, the under the “Thisai” project, the district adminsitration was also able to pull back some 200 dropout students back into the school since January. While 78 of them were back in schools, 14 of them joined ITIs.

Among them were 42 Plus Two students.

District level officials made door-to-door visits and brought back the students after interacting with them and their parents.

“Otherwise, these students would have missed their public examination,” the CEO said.