Patiala, September 5: School education minister Vijay Inder Singla, on Saturday, felicitated as many as 74 teachers and officials by conferring state awards to them under various categories during a simple function here at the auditorium of Thapar Institute Patiala on the occasion of Teacher’s Day. During the function, he also paid respect to country’s former President, scholar, philosopher and Bharat Ratna awardee, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who was born on this day in 1888.
The cabinet minister conferred award certificates to four Patiala teachers personally during the function while remaining 70 teachers were given awards through video conferencing. Notably, simple and small functions were arranged in the offices of all district education officers of Punjab to ensure social distancing norms amid Covid-19 pandemic.
Vijay Inder Singla, while lauding the efforts of teachers and other staff of education department, said that teachers are the biggest contributors in the development of any country and on the occasion of Teacher’s Day, he personally paid respect to all the teachers of the society. He added that government school teachers have been working tirelessly to improve the standards of education in the state. He said that with the efforts of all staff members of education department, the quality of education and infrastructure have also been improved.
Singla said that due to the hard work and dedication of government school teachers, Punjab has registered around 15 percent growth in enrolments which highest ever growth in admissions in the history.
He added that Captain Amarinder Singh led state government has also regularly been taking new initiatives to improve the quality of education in government schools. He said that under these initiatives, around 45 percent government schools of Punjab have been developed as smart schools. He said that this year the government schools have outshined private schools and performed better in examination results.
The cabinet minister said that to utilize the energy of young educationists, their government has also introduced new schemes in the field of education. He said that their government started recruiting principals and other administrative posts through direct recruitment which helped to engage more youth to transform the level of education in government schools. He added besides the direct recruitment, they have also introduced a new category in state awards in which teachers with three year service made eligible for state awards. He added that earlier, there was cap of minimum 10 year service to apply for any state award.
Meanwhile, Secretary School Education Krishan Kumar also thanked the teachers for their commendable job during Covid-19 pandemic and said that their concentrated efforts have helped the department to achieve all the targets. He added that as the enrollment have been increased; the required facilities in government schools will also be provided soon.
On this occasion, DGSE Mohammad Tayab and other education department officials were also present.
