eClassroom on Wheels goes around stopping at schools so students can access top-notch facilities

In the middle of a school day, students from classes I to V at Panchayat Union Primary School in Kolathur sit inside a classroom in orderly circles as the headmistress oversees their work.
As a yellow bus halts outside the school, located off East Coast Road, and a familiar trainer gets out of the vehicle, there is a quiet commotion.
Thirteen sprightly class V students quickly move base to the classroom that has come visiting; and one they can have to themselves for the next 45 minutes. Except, this bus will take them on a virtual, rather than a literal tour, and is equipped with netbooks instead of notebooks.
The Kolathur school is one of the eight government schools in Kadapakkam (around 100 km from Chennai) that The East West Foundation of India’s (TEWFI) ‘eClassroom on Wheels’ visits, said G. Vijay Kumar, chief administrator, system and ICT education, TEWFI.
The bus is fitted with an LCD television and trays behind each seat to accommodate netbooks.
J. Vimalraj, a class V student, says, this week, he has learnt to arrange Tamil alphabets by dragging and dropping them in the correct slot instead of merely writing them on a sheet of paper. “I have also learnt English words like when, what, who, go,” he says, excitedly.
Students learn concepts in mathematics, Tamil, English, science and general knowledge through simple animation, activities, stories and modules from the Azim Premji Foundation, among other resources.
“It began as a pilot project in 2011 and now covers eight schools. The van visits each school twice a week. A trainer from TEWFI goes to the schools in the bus,” says Mr. Kumar.
There may be no teacher standing behind their back all the time. However, that does not mean they can take it easy, says R. Rokesh, a class VI student of Panchayat Union Middle School, Nainarkuppam, who was part of the programme last year.
“The cartoon in the netbook scolds you if you give the wrong answer,” he says. “We learnt tenses and verbs,” says S. Harini, while other students recall the modules they went through last year.
V. Elango, headmaster of the Nainarkuppam school, says the bus has been coming to the school for two years. “Students find the classes engaging and the feedback from our teachers has been good,” he says.
G. Selvi, headmistress of the Kolathur school, says the impact is felt mostly in English learning. “It is easier to teach grammar since the visual content supplements it. The bus has been coming to our school for three years,”