Maths rangoli, bag-less days, no punishments: 46 school teachers get national award for innovations

President Droupadi Murmu presented the National Awards to Teachers to honour their unique contribution to school education

Maths rangoli to teach shapes, algebraic tiling on floors, elements of periodic table as role numbers, introducing "bag less days" and "no punishment to students" are among innovative teaching-learning practices adopted by 46 teachers who have bagged National Teachers Award this year.

Khursheed Ahmad, a teacher of Composite School Sahawa, in UP's Deoria district has been awarded for using simple innovations in pedagogy such as using the elements of periodic table as role numbers of students to make it easy for them to remember.

"With the limited resources I made science models such as heart, human circulatory system etc., with recycled material and made students do experiments such as chromatography," Ahmad told PTI.

Kandala Ramaiah, teacher of a Zila Parishad school in Telangana, introduced Maths rangoli to teach shapes, algebraic tiling on floors in school and wall painting with mathematics concepts.

In GMS Officers Hill in Nagaland, 80 per cent students are domestic helpers and hence head teacher Mimi Yhoshii conducts classes for them after school hours to reduce dropout rate.

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"Turning bio non-biodegradable plastic waste into baskets, floor mats, old clothes into potholders, doormats and selling them to generate some income for the school are some of the ideas I implemented," she said.

Maria Murena Miranda, Principal of govt school in Goa, successfully renovated, upgraded and made her rural tribal school infrastructure child friendly with the help of the community.

"Due to her efforts, dropout rate has declined in her school. She has worked hard to support tribal students by undertaking home visits, remedial classes, encouraging girls by providing free note books and uniforms," her award citation read.

Mohd Jabir, teacher of Government Middle School in Ladakh, introduced "no punishment to students".

"Jabir finds innovative ways to teach which are based on the principle of 'no punishment to students'. Acting smartly as per children's psychology, he used the technique of 'clapping while learning' for teaching phonetics, grammar, vocabulary, among others," his award citation read.

Neeraj Saxena, who is the only teacher in Government Primary School Salegarh, Madhya Pradesh, has motivated and mobilised women in the villages around to work as volunteers for schoolwork.

Nongmaithem Gautam Singh, Teacher, Eastern Ideal High School in Manipur has bagged the award for his attempt to protect students from falling chalk powder by converting the blackboards to white boards using local material.

"I put local resources such as bamboo to their best use in making protractors and bulletin boards. I also donated and also trained other school teachers in doing so," Singh said.

Kavita Sanghvi, principal of Chatrabhuj Narsee Memorial School in Mumbai, introduced life skills in the school curriculum where children are taught soap and shoe making.

"Bag less day initiative that she had implemented helped the students to try and experiment with different fields including arts and culture," her citation read.

President Droupadi Murmu presented the National Awards to Teachers, 2022, on Monday to 46 select awardees to honour their unique contribution to school education.

The Ministry of Education (MoE) has been organising a function at Vigyan Bhawan on Teachers' Day on September 5 every year to confer the awards to best teachers of the country, selected through a rigorous transparent and online three-stage selection process.

Ravi Aruna, teacher at Asnra Zillaprishad High School in Andhra Pradesh, developed an innovative teaching model called "Group Clinical Supervision Model" for evaluation of professional development of in-service teachers.

Saurabh Suman, who teaches at Lalit Narayan Laxmi Narayan Project Girls High School in Bihar, introduced many innovations in his schools such as smart card for social distancing, smart blind stick, automatic security road system, SMS alert flood control system, voice controlled electronic appliance and smart dustbin.

Among the awarded teachers, three each are from Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra and Telangana.

Yudhveer, Virender Kumar and Amit Kumar (Himachal Pradesh); Harpreet Singh, Arun Kumar Garg and Vandana Shahi (Punjab); Shashikant Sambhajirao Kulthe, Somnath Waman Walke and Kavita Sanghvi (Maharashtra); Kandala Ramaiah, T N Sridhar and Sunitha Rao (Telangana), are the awardees from these four states.

Pradeep Negi and Kaustubh Chandra Joshi (Uttarakhand), Sunita and Durga Ram Muwal (Rajasthan), Neeraj Saxena and Om Prakash Patidar (Madhya Pradesh), Saurabh Suman and Nishi Kumari (Bihar), G Ponsankari and Umesh TP (Karnataka), Mala Jigdal Dorjee and Sidharth Yonzone (Sikkim) are among the selected teachers.

The other awardees include Anju Dahiya (Haryana), Rajni Sharma (Delhi), Seema Rani (Chandigarh), Maria Murena Miranda (Goa), Umesh Bharatbhai Vala (Gujarat), Mamta Ahar (Chhattisgarh), Iswar Chandra Nayak (Odhisha), Buddhadev Dutta (West Bengal), Mimi Yhoshii (Nagaland), Nongmaithem Gautam Singh (Manipur), Ranjan Kumar Biswas (Andaman and Nicobar).