T.N. School Education Department wins SKOCH Award 2026 for 3 educational initiatives

The School Education Department has won the SKOCH Award 2026 for 3 initiatives — VETRI Palligal, TN SPARK, and Tamil Nadu Model Schools. The awards honour high-impact governance innovations that present measurable outcomes astatine scale.

According to a property release, VETRI Palligal is the State’s flagship endowment find and competitory exam enactment programme for authorities schoolhouse students. Through aptitude mapping, vocation guidance, and structured coaching for nationalist entranceway examinations, the inaugural has expanded to 59,270 students crossed 339 hub schools successful 236 blocks.

Under the TN SPARK initiative, authorities schoolhouse students are equipped with AI, robotics, coding, and integer skills required for the aboriginal economy. In its archetypal year, the programme reached implicit 5,000 schools with AI learning centres, reaching 3.53 lakh students and trained 6,000 teachers.

The Tamil Nadu Model Schools provides a afloat state-funded residential world enactment for high-potential authorities schoolhouse students aspiring to beryllium placed successful premier institutions. The programme present serves 11,885 residential students crossed each 38 districts and wherever implicit 1,300 students person admittance to premier institutions per year.

B. Chandra Mohan, School Education Department Secretary, said, “This designation reflects Tamil Nadu’s committedness to ensuring that nary child’s aboriginal is constricted by circumstance. Our absorption remains connected gathering a nationalist acquisition strategy that is equitable, aspirational, and future-ready.”