President Ram Nath Kovind confers National Teachers' Awards; 3 from Karnataka among winners

Three teachers from Karnataka, who used innovative methods such as musical spellings, and mathematics and science laboratories, to teach school students were among the 47 honoured with the National Teachers' Awards on Saturday.

President Ram Nath Kovind presented the awards at a ‘virtual’ ceremony in the presence of Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Minister of State for Education Sanjay Dhotre and Secretary, School Education Anita Karwal.

The award winning teachers joined the ceremony through video conferencing from their respective schools.

Chemmalar Shanmugam, the Head Mistress of the primary section of a Kendriya Vidyalaya No 2 School in Jalhalli, Bengaluru , received the award for teaching English language through classroom games, concerts and dovetailing local issues such as lost lakes of the city to generate interest in studies.

High school teacher Surekha Jagannath from the Government High School in Afzalpur in Kalaburgi won the award for over a hundred innovations and experiments in science teaching to promote personalized learning,

development of curiosity and creativity in students.

Yakub S, a high school teacher from Belthangaddy in Dakshina Kannada district was honoured for setting up the first laboratory for mathematics in any government school

“I have created 500 educational videos on YouTube, around 300 focused on mathematics to make the subject interesting for students,” Yakub told DH.

He said the videos, explaining mathematics is simple Kannada, were being used to impart education across the state.

Yakub said the ‘Maths Magic’ YouTube channel is mainly targeted at high school students.

For Shanmugam, use of information communication technology in imparting education was a passion that stood her in good stead during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Shanmugham said she now also helped fellow teachers in the Kendriya Vidyalaya Organisation and beyond to use technology in imparting education to students.

Addressing the teachers, President Kovind applauded them for making the transition to technology driven teaching in the challenging times of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It is important for all teachers ‘to upgrade and update’ their skills in the field of digital technology so as to make education more effective and also make the students conversant with the new techniques,” the President said.