Campaign inspired students to read newspapers: Schools

MUMBAI: Nowadays, when

students

would rather be glued to their smartphones, the

Times SPARK

campaign has inculcated the habit of reading

newspapers

in them, felt principals from News In Education (

NIE

) schools.

Teachers

concurred that the campaign activities had prompted students to engage in current affairs and explore new ideas.

The Times of India started the Times SPARK (Scholarship Programme for Awareness, Reasoning and Knowledge) initiative to encourage students to examine a series of articles and then be tested on what they had read. The objective of the initiative was to broaden young minds, help them differentiate between fact and fiction, and read more than just their textbooks.

In Mumbai, the maximum participation came from NES School in Bhandup, which saw 1,837 students sign up. “For the first few days, we had to remind students to read articles, but soon they started enjoying the exercise and they spent more and more time doing that,” said

principal

Megha Ghadge.

The campaign gave students a chance to pick up the

reading habit

. “Participating in a competition like Times Spark has inculcated the habit of reading in students. The artistic literature made children not only interested, but also gave them a chance to understand life and the world in a better fashion and sharpen their own linguistic competence,” said Khushboo Anand, principal of Cambridge School in Kandivli.

Similarly, at Ryan International School in Malad, which saw 258 participating students, the principal felt the competition took the learning levels beyond textbooks. “Textbooks tend to provide a convenient base or an outline for learning and knowledge construction towards an expected outcome. However, in the journey of learning, what information a learner acquires beyond the realm of textbooks is appropriate, necessary and relevant to translate into knowledge that can be applied with understanding is a question one faces,” said principal Varsha Kumta.

Schools are also encouraging similar activities in the classroom. “We do encourage students and that is the rationale behind subscribing to a school newspaper. We conduct a weekly quiz on current affairs exclusively based on previous week’s newspapers,” said Malika Subramaniam, principal of Navy Children’s School, Colaba.

The subjects of the published articles students read as part of the campaign ranged from humanities to sciences and current affairs, giving them a wide range of world realities to discover.


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