In August 2021, the Union Ministry of Education (MoE), Department of School Education and Literacy, published a list of 44 selected teachers from India for the National Awards to Teachers, 2021, the highest teachers award in India.
- On September 5, 2021, the President of India Ram Nath Kovind will award the National Award to Teachers 2021, to those shortlisted 44 teachers. List of awardees
About the Awardees:
i.Hariswami Das from West Bengal:
Hariswami Das, the headmaster of Sovanagar High School in Malda, West Bengal, has been selected for the National Awards to Teachers, 2021 from West Bengal for his digital educational model which was created in 2020 under COVID-19.
- Initiative of Hariswami Das: He started an initiative of QR code for the students of class 6 to12. The scanning of QR codes gives access to books of all the subjects that the students cannot buy and videos uploaded by the school teachers.
- The names of the books are available in the code and the code is given in a card to make it easier for the students to use.
- Through his model, he took digital learning to the doorstep of the students during pandemic.
ii.Among the selected teachers for 2021, 9 awardees were women teachers.
iii.From CBSE Schools: Among Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools, two teachers viz, Suruchi Gandhi and Achala Verma from Delhi’s Bal Bharati Public School Dwarka and Rajasthan’s Birla Balika Vidyapeeth, Jhunjhunu also took place in the list of awardees.
iv.Pramod Kumar Shukla, a teacher from Eklavya model residential school, Karpawand, Bastar, Chhattisgarh is also listed among the 44 recipients of the award.
About National Awards to Teachers, 2021:
i.Purpose: To celebrate the unique contribution of the finest teachers in India and to honor those teachers who have improved the quality of school education and the lives of their students.
ii.The registration process of the award was held from June 1 to 10, 2021. Teachers were allowed to self-nominate themselves for the award and the final recipients were chosen by a jury under MoE.
iii.National Award to Teachers was instituted in 1958 and the guidelines were revised in 2018 and rationalised the number of awards to 45.
iv.Eligibility: All regular teachers were eligible and no minimum years of service were required.
Recent Related News:
On July 16, 2021, Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, and Tribal Affairs Minister, Arjun Munda, jointly launched a training program for school teachers named ‘School Innovation Ambassador Training Program’ (SIATP).
About Ministry of Education (MoE):
Union Minister – Dharmendra Pradhan (Constituency – Madhya Pradesh)
Ministry of State – Annpurna Devi (Constituency – Kodarma, Jharkhand), Subhas Sarkar (Constituency – Bankura, West Bengal), Rajkumar Ranjan Singh (Constituency – Inner Manipur,Manipur)
