IIT Madras conducts science, technology programme for rural school students

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras is conducting a five-day outreach programme on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) from June 20 to 25 for rural school students through a summer programme to inspire and cultivate passion in them for creative and innovative thinking for scientific and technological advancements. Through this initiative, IIT Madras aims to reach out to one lakh government school students across India per year.

The IIT Madras STEM summer programme will be taught to rural students in both English and Tamil languages. IIT Madras will also extend this programme to online mode so that rural students across India can access it. About 70 percent of the programme will be practical components and 30 percent will be motivational lectures. The first batch will have about 100 Class 10 government school students from rural areas. The programme will include topics in basic sciences covering environmental and electronic aspects in engineering, technological growth in renewable energies and applied mathematics, among others.

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Students from Ariyalur, Cuddalore, Dharmapuri, Kallakurichi, Krishnagiri, Perambalur, Salem, Tiruchirapalli, Tiruvannamalai and Villupuram districts have been selected for the first batch. IIT Madras take care of the travel, food and accommodation for these students. Under the programme, students will be able to conduct as many as 100 electronic experiments.

Tamil Nadu school education minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi inaugurated the IIT Madras programme for rural students in the presence of IITM director V Kamakoti, and professors R. Sarathi and Anbarasu Manivannan of the electrical engineering department of IIT Madras. "The Department has given importance to students from disadvantaged blocks while selecting students for this program. This 100 students is only a beginning and many more students will be brought in. This program has 70 per cent of hands-on component with the rest being theory,” said the minister.

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