BHUBANESWAR: It the PM Shri Kendriya Vidyalaya in Koraput, classrooms turn into studios after the class hours where enthusiastic children engage in shooting, post-production and other aspects of short filmmaking. But their films are not typical dramatic narratives. Instead, they are a take on society.
Introducing them to this new skill is a teacher of the school Tarun Kumar Dash who uses short filmmaking as a medium to make his students aware about the problems that exist in the society. A primary teacher at the school, he has been implementing a project ‘Katha Chitra’ since 2021 under the NCERT which aims at imparting education through dramatisation. Dash will receive the National Teachers’ Award-2025 for this innovative teaching-learning model using short films.
“Education should never be limited to books. Children should grow up as learned individuals who come up with solutions to the societal problems that exist around them,” Dash said. The initiative, he added, has helped students not just learn filmmaking but also explore the realities of the society they live in.
Under Katha Chitra, Dash has so far written and directed seven short films with his students which delve into social issues. “These films are aimed at creating awareness not just among the schoolchildren but also the communities that they belong to. So, we have children from our school as the actors and they are shot in the places that they hail from,” he said.
Three of them have won awards. One of them, ‘Pahiya Kursi’ based on inclusive education won two awards at the All India Children’s e-content competition by NCERT recently. The film has more than seven lakh views on YouTube. Last year, his short film ‘Dadaji Ka Thela’ which creates awareness on the use of cloth bags instead of single-use plastic had won the same award. His short film ‘Sadak’, which he wrote and directed, received an award at the National Road Safety Short Film Festival 2021.
Dash has also been using audio-visual content to popularise consumption of millets among students. His is the only school which has dedicated every Monday as ‘Mandia Day’ when students consume all forms of millets.
Prior to this, Dash had won the CV Raman Science Teaching award and Classroom Innovation & Experimentation award for his efforts in the field of science learning. He is also a national-level mentor for primary teachers under the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). Under NCTE’s National Mission for Mentoring, he trains teachers online on different aspects of capacity-building for free.