Starting today, primary school teachers in Tamil Nadu will participate in a three-day training program aimed at enhancing their teaching methodologies for the newly introduced state board textbooks for Classes I-III. The training sessions, running from 9am to 5pm, will focus on effective lesson planning and engaging storytelling techniques. Facilitated by block resource teachers from the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), these trainers were themselves trained last month by faculty from the district institute of education and training (DIET). Kamaraj, an assistant project officer at SSA, noted that training will occur in one selected school from each of the 10 blocks in Chennai. The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) officials indicated that the sessions will be more about orientation than rigorous training, providing teachers with templates to enhance their teaching styles. Teachers have expressed optimism about the integration of workbooks with textbooks, which includes various interactive activities that require clarity on teacher involvement. Schools are set to reopen for all classes on June 4.