3 அமெரிக்க மாநிலங்களில் தமிழ் மொழிக்கு அங்கீகாரம்..

Tamil Language Schools get accredited in 3 US states:

American Tamil Academy (ATA),  a non-profit Federal tax exempt organization in the United States was  founded 4 years back with a primary, noble objective of providing a conducive platform  to facilitate and promote Tamil education for future generations

At first, a common, integrated Tamil Language learning syllabus was meticulously devised and classroom/homework books were created. This syllabus has been adopted and is now followed by 62 Tamil Schools in the United States, England and Australia. The entire syllabus, consisting eight different levels, is used by more than 3500 students, as of academic year 2014-15.

A Learning Management software System, comprising different tracking tools to measure students’ progress and school administration,   was implemented and made available to all the member schools. To supplement the text books, eLearning and interactive software for Tamil education was rolled out recently. Higher level students get benefitted with the eLearning tools by repetitively learning the logics and nuances of Tamil grammar, while the intro level kids study Tamil letters, words and simple sentences from the interactive contents with fun.

All the Tamil Schools in North America are run by non-profit organizations, with the voluntary efforts of individuals who have passion towards Tamil language and culture. These schools are self-funded with the annual fee paid by parents, equally passionate about the language and induce their kids enjoy the wealth of Tamil. The Teachers who teach in these schools are mostly parent volunteers. These teachers / school coordinators put in lot of energy and valuable time without getting any remuneration with a noble intent of teaching Tamil.

Neither Indian nor Tamilnadu government fund these organizations to cover the basic operation cost to run the schools. As a non-profit organization in US, though classrooms could be rented at discounted rate, rent alone accounts for a major chunk of the expenses.

Historical trends show that parents are the driving force for the younger kids, generally below grade 5 in K-12 schools, to learn Tamil. This demographical section of the students constitute majority of Tamil learning students in the US.

Beyond Grade 5, kids are loaded with their K-12 school assignments on week days and on weekends they take up sports or other social activities. It is difficult for parents / teachers to make these kids focus on Tamil education after a certain level.

Considering all these trivial factors, ATA realized that providing a high quality Tamil education is pertinent to make the students embrace and view Tamil at par with other world languages taught in USA.  Language credits at School / College could be the only factor that would motivate a student beyond their parent’s compulsion and reap the benefits learning Tamil Language.

Accreditation as such is the certification of competency and credibility in a specific field by an external organization with rigorous standards. Some of the K-12 public schools, not all public schools to reiterate, in the US are Accredited with such organizations.  Though all of these public schools were funded and backed by government, some of the schools could not meet the stipulations laid out for Accreditation.

To get accredited, Tamil Language Schools have to go through the same process of evaluation as a public school, without sparing an iota of standards. It is not a simple feat for a non-profit, voluntarily run organization to step up to this level.

To simplify few of the major tasks of individual Tamil schools, ATA designed a common syllabus which is reviewed and refined and reprinted   year over year. ATA also helps with common implementation of School/Student Management systems and other pertinent common infrastructure in various ways.

 Other operational functions of these Tamil schools, run at different cities / states, are completely managed by the local non-profit organizations.  This includes enrolling students, booking classrooms, recruiting teacher volunteers and most importantly teaching the Tamil language in classrooms.

Tamil Schools and education in the US is totally different from the formal Tamil Language teaching process in Tamilnadu, Singapore, Malaysia, Eelam etc. where the language is taught as a subject every day for 12 years.

But in US, students learn Tamil only as a second language. US school system (K12) requires every high school student (Grade 9 to 12) to learn a language other than English for 4 years. Students earn minimum 4 language credits for this and it helps them to accrue the valuable credits to join any college/university degree, which in turn help them to save tuition fee.

Keeping this in mind, Tamil Schools were pursuing to be accredited to encourage students to learn Tamil as a second language and earn the language credits.

Students from Tamil decent (either from Tamilnadu, Srilanka, Singapore, Malaysia) usually learn other languages like Spanish, German, French, in few instances Japanese or Chinese to earn the 4 Language credits. Learning Tamil via accredited Institutions help the students to earn required or additional credits.

With the accreditation of Tamil schools, students learning Tamil will dramatically increase, which may also lead Tamil being taught in regular US school at districts where Tamil population is dense.

 Considering the necessity and organic shift in Tamil Language education in US, ATA was spearheading the efforts for the last 3 years to structure the organization meeting all the requirements of an educational Institution. This paved way to the success of 3 schools from different states that were successfully accredited in the first round.

Tamil schools from the State of Minnesota, Missouri and Texas achieved the unique distinction and recognition as accredited schools.

 These schools were thoroughly evaluated by AdvancEd over a year on various standards.    AdvancEd is the world premier Institution specialized in certifying educational institutions, all over the world. AdvancEd has so far certified 32,000 schools covering over 20 Million students. This is the only accreditation body which is recognized in all 50 US states and command highest available standards for education accreditation.

All the 3 schools at Minnesota, Missouri and Houston Texas, have been rated well above the average score of all the 32,000 schools accredited by AdvancEd so far. This is a unique achievement considering that all these schools were self-funded and entirely run by volunteers compared to the public schools in USA which are fully funded and supported by government with millions of dollars.   It is worthy to note that, some of the public schools could not even meet the basic standards set by AdvancEd  and have a very long way to go on this process.

The Audit committee at these 3 schools comprised of completely different set of people. However,   all of them concluded in their final comments that they have never come across any schools like Tamil schools. They have complimented that though these schools are run by volunteers who are not Teachers by profession, they exceed the requirements for a premier education institution.

The Audit committees also commented that they were overwhelmed with the passion of School Admins, Teachers, Parents and Students who   all have vested interests to sustain the language in USA. Recognition of these Tamil schools in three states is an important milestone in the history of Tamil Schools in the US.  More Tamil schools from many other states are aspiring to be accredited the same way.   Soon, like the immigrants of Malaysia and Singapore who added esteemed pride to Tamil by making it as a national language in a foreign soil, Tamilians in the US will unite with a passion to pass on the richness of Tamil language to the next generation and people of non-Tamil origin.

After all, the greatest classical Language from Asia with unbroken grammar for over 2000 years is a treasure for every Tamilian. It is time for the world to recognize and appreciate, that this unique pride started at the world super power United States of America, the land of immigrants where every language/culture is equally respected and recognized.