Teacher Transforms School Into Train, Triples Enrollment

Manimekalai walked back into Pethanayakanur Government High School after months of pandemic lockdowns and couldn't believe her eyes. Every classroom had been painted to look like a bright, colorful train coach, and her teachers welcomed students back with music and celebration.

The train coach idea came from Tamil teacher Balamurugan, who wanted children to feel genuinely excited about returning to school after such a difficult time. But the transformation he helped lead had actually started years earlier, when hardly anyone wanted to attend the school at all.

Back in 2012, Pethanayakanur Government High School in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore district had just 70 students. Parents chose other schools instead because the facilities were poor and better options existed nearby.

When Balamurugan joined as a teacher in 2013, he started with something simple. He and his students planted 110 saplings in one week across the barren school grounds.

Those first trees grew into a full environmental education program. Students began collecting native seeds, making seed balls for reforestation, and learning about climate change.

Over the years, they've made 45,000 seed balls and planted more than 960 saplings. The school maintains a plastic-free campus where students share jaggery instead of packaged chocolates on birthdays.

Between 2017 and 2019, Balamurugan focused on building a library. He reached out to reading groups, bought books with his own money (spending around Rs 24,000), and gathered donations from writers and nonprofits.

That library now holds more than 6,000 books. Students participate in reading circles, discuss what they've read, and write their own poems, essays, and stories.

The Ripple Effect

The changes at Pethanayakanur started with one teacher planting trees, but they grew into something much bigger. Other teachers joined the effort, and the work became a collective mission by the entire teaching staff.

Parents noticed. Families who once avoided the school started enrolling their children there instead.

Today, Pethanayakanur Government High School has more than 210 students, triple what it had in 2012. The campus that was once barren now provides shade for children playing beneath trees they helped plant.

For Manimekalai, now in Class 10, the train coach classrooms represent a school she speaks about with pride.