POLITICAL ARENA TO CLASSROOM: EX-MINISTER GOES BACK TO ROOTS
NEW DELHI: A video of former Union minister and Congress leader Ninong Ering, singing Doe a Deer, a popular song from The Sound of Music, for students, won several hearts after it was widely circulated on Twitter on Tuesday.
The 62-year-old, who served as the minister of state for minority affairs from October 2012 to May 2014 in the UPA government, was teaching students of Class 1 at Remi government school at Arunachal Pradesh’s Pasighat when the video was shot.
Speaking to HT over the phone, the Congress leader said that the school was like a second home to him before Covid-19 pandemic struck the country.
“I have always believed that the correct pronunciation is extremely important. There is no better way to do this than by using nursery rhymes, or even songs. I personally think Sound of Music has some of the (best) instructional rhymes,” he said.
Ering, who was elected as the legislator of Pasighat (West) in June 2019, moved to the village and started teaching in schools last year. He spent five years as a teacher before he became a civil servant in 1981. He used to visit Remi at least thrice a week before the pandemic forced the schools to shut in March last year.
“It was after a very long hiatus that I got to return to the school,” Ering said. “Now, schools are slowly opening up and I could not miss the chance to return to the classroom.” Eloquence in a language, Ering said, can be a means to achieving success in life.
Recalling his teaching days from 1975 to 1980, he says: “There were just the three of us. We would teach everything from mathematics to the social sciences. Back then, the schools barely had 40-50 students, and now they have nearly 1,000.”