A Silent Science Revolution: Atal Tinkering Labs Making Their Way Into Government Schools In Tamil Nadu

It is a dream Dr Abdul Kalam would have loved to live.

Tamil Nadu is set to get 223 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) under NITI Aayog project. Ramanathan Ramanan, managing director of the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) said that the funds provided for schools will be used to procure technology like 3D printers and robotic kits. While the otherwise noisy politicians of Tamil Nadu have chosen to remain indifferent to the poor standards of government schools in the state, the AIM - one of the flagship projects of Prime Minister Narendra Modi - is silently transforming the government schools. Today, all the 32 districts of Tamil Nadu have been fitted out with 395 state-of-the-art labs, and 70 per cent of the recipients are government schools and government-aided schools.

Already ATLs have been changing the way students learn science and mathematics in Tamil Nadu. This is evident from the interaction the Prime Minister recently had with a three-girl team from Thoothukudi’s Subbiah Vidyalayam, headed by Jeevitha Lakshmi. In the 1,500 sq ft lab established in their school, the girls created a solar powered automatic irrigation system, which uses a soil sensor to detect moisture levels, triggering the irrigation pump. The moisture level is adjusted according to crop requirements and once it is achieved, the pump is turned off automatically.

Taking science and technology to the masses is a policy advocated from the dawn of Independence by eminent physicists like C V Raman and Megnad Saha. Now, the Modi government is aggressively pursuing it by democratising science and technology education with ATLs playing a significant role.