122 selected for teachers’ awards
NEW DELHI: Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia announced that 122 teachers in the Capital will be felicitated at the state teachers’ award on Sunday, adding that the number of awardees has been increased from 103 last year. “Since 2016, we have been conducting teachers’ awards on a grand scale instead of keeping it as a departmental activity. This year, we increased the number of awards from 103 to 122 to recognise the work of more teachers,” said Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio.
Among the awardees are an IIT graduate who chose to teach in government schools, a teacher who roped in informal workers to track her students, a head of school who arranged smartphones for over 300 students, and a teacher-cum-sitar player who made the education department proud with his accolades.
The education minister credited changes in the selection criteria to the government receiving 1,108 applications for the awards this year, as compared to 234 in 2020.
“We introduced relaxations, including reducing the 15-year teaching limit to three years, allowing guest and contractual teachers to apply as per conditions for regular teachers, introducing categories as per student strength so that more teachers could be identified for their work, and a new category called Face of DOE (Directorate of Education) which would be given to two teachers who do notable work in any field,” Sisodia said.
Music teacher Rajkumar from Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya in Dwarka Sector-19 and Mathematics teacher Suman Arora from RPVV, A-6 Paschim Vihar will receive the Face of DOE award this year.
Arora, an Iit-delhi graduate, was instrumental in helping 23 government school students clear Joint Entrance Examination (Main) last year and also worked in reviewing and updating the support material for Class 12 mathematics this academic year.
“She also reserves a portion of her salary to help those students preparing for JEE,” said Sisodia.
Rajkumar initiated various activities in his school to promote Indian classical music among students.
“He participated in Kala Sanskriti Utsav organised by the Hindi Academy Delhi. He was conferred with ‘Pandit Nikhil Banerjee Smriti Sangeet Samman’ for participating and giving outstanding performance in the competition held in 2020,” the education department said in a press note.
Rajkumar said he recently played sitar non-stop for 32 hours and 20 minutes, breaking the earlier Guinness record of 29 hours and 9 minutes. He is currently awaiting confirmation from the Guinness Book of World Records for performing the longest sitar session.
On Saturday, Sisodia also applauded the efforts of Bharti Kalra, a vice-principal at Sarvodaya Co-ed Vidyalaya, Sector 8
Rohini, who arranged for 321 smartphones for children unable to attend online classes due to lack of devices.
Another recipient Sarita Rani Bhardwaj, who teaches Political Science at a government school in Mangolpuri, was selected for tracking six of her students. “During the pandemic, many students could not be tracked... I paid courier service personnel, milkmen and kirana store workers to track the addresses of my students and get their updated contacts...,” she said.
The list of awardees — a majority are from Delhi government schools — also includes 14 sports teachers, two librarians, 13 corporation school teachers and 15 private school teachers.
Director of Education Udit Prakash Rai said, “Our teachers served as frontline workers during the Covid-19 period and continued their teaching duties as well. We had an inclusive process and there was no influence.”