Students watch with rapt attention lessons screened on the television set. Picture by Abhijit Chakrabarty

Gangarampur (South Dinajpur), Nov. 27: The headmaster of Hawa Kalitala Primary School here has hit on a unique method to lure students to school.

Partha Sarkar has put up a television set with a CD player, which he uses to screen lessons in Bengali, English, arithmetic and science. And he seems to have found magical results in it. The daily dose of lessons in animation has the children glued to the TV sets, learning the subjects with rapt attention.

The chairman of South Dinajpur’s primary school council, Apurba Sen, who learnt about Sarkar’s strategy from The Telegraph, heaped praises on the headmaster. “I support Sarkar’s effort. Other schools in the district can follow the teaching method as well,” Sen said.

Sarkar introduced the new teaching method nine months ago and apparently, absenteeism has come down sharply. “There are two Sishu Shiksha Kendras (SSK) near our institution, but even then we have 256 students in our government-sponsored school. Those living near the SSKs prefer to come here,” he said.

According to Sarkar, the CDs seem to have a therapeutic effect on some students. “Biswajit Haldar of Class III had a speech impediment. After repeating multiplication tables along with the CD, he speaks much better now,” he said.

Kalpana Basak, a teacher at the school, said: “I have donated my old television set and the headmaster bought a CD player.”