Kerala Schools Introduce New Seating Arrangement To Eliminate Concept Of Backbenchers

News18

21 hours ago

The school has implemented an innovative seating arrangement where single row seats are aligned with the four walls of the classroom, ensuring everyone sits in front benches.
Ramavilasom Vocational Higher Secondary School (RVHSS) in Valakom, a district in South Kerala has become a model for educational innovation with a unique classroom setup that eliminates the concept of backbenchers. To ensure every primary student receives equal attention, RVHSS has garnered admiration and imitation, reported PTI.
Inspired by the recently released Malayalam movie 'Sthanarthi Sreekuttan', the school has implemented an innovative seating arrangement where single row seats are aligned with the four walls of the classroom, ensuring everyone sits in front benches.
This seating arrangement has already been adopted by eight schools in Kerala, and even a school in Punjab has embraced it.
'I got a message that a school in Punjab has also adopted it after the principal saw the movie on the OTT platform. He also screened the movie for the students. I am happy that it got national attention," Vinesh Viswanathan, director of the movie 'Sthanarthi Sreekuttan' told the news agency.
He added that the movie had just one scene showing this arrangement, as an idea implemented by a seventh standard student in the film. 'It was his experience of being insulted sitting on the backbench that gave him such an idea. I never thought it would get such attention. It is not an idea created by us, but we did have such a seating arrangement earlier in classrooms, as part of District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and we had lost it somewhere in between," Vinesh said.
Minister K B Ganesh Kumar, whose family operates RMVHSS, played a crucial role in introducing this new system to the school. After watching a preview of 'Sthanarthi Sreekuttan' a year before its release, he discussed implementing it in RMVHSS primary classes with the teachers.
At first, the school decided to start it in class 1 and after receiving good feedback, it expanded it to all lower primary classes, Sunil P Sekhar, Headmaster of RMVHSS, told PTI. He noted that this system allowed teachers to give equal attention to all students, facilitating better student monitoring. Additionally, it eliminated the concept of backbenchers, putting every student in a position of prominence.
'Lower primary classes are where students learn a lot of new things and they naturally get rid of the concept or taboo of sitting on the backbenches. It also helps students to have a more direct interaction with the teachers," he added.
According to the teachers, such systems are already practiced in countries like Finland and Norway with a better student-teacher ratio in schools.
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