5 Sep : On the eve of teacher’s day, around 350 teachers from all over the country were awarded with National Teacher’s Award.
Constituted in 1958, this award is given every year by the President of India.
However, this year the awards were presented by Vice President, Hamid Ansari as President Pratibha Devisingh Patil is on Russia visit.
The Vice President, who gave away the National Awards to Teachers in New Delhi, described the recently passed Right to Education Act passed by the Parliament “as more empowering, in terms of its impact, than the Right to Vote”.
“We have a situation today in which teachers are politically empowered and professionally disempowered. This is a disservice to the cause of education”.
” The need of the hour is to painstakingly rebuild the professional identity of our teachers, nurture their skills and professional competence through continuing education,” he said.
Ansari questioned the current system of teacher recruitment, teaching methods, performance assessment, incentive and reward structure and manner of accountability.
“Far too often the focus, regrettably, is on completing the syllabus rather than on cultivating critical thinking skills and competencies. This needs to be corrected,” he said at the function where over 300 teachers from across the country were conferred the award on the occasion of Teacher’s Day.
Under the Right to Education Act, the government will come up with a framework of national curriculum, develop and enforce standards for teacher training and provide technical support and resources to states for promoting innovation, research, planning and capacity.