PATNA: It is not that the teachers at government schools are less capable than their counterparts at private institutions, it is only that they are not getting the right exposure. This is how activist, advisor Abhiskek Ranjan summed up the problem faced by government teachers.
With an aim to correcting this anomaly, the Bihar native started a digital initiative to showcase the achievements of government school teachers, and it seems to be working wonders. The web domain sarkarischool.in has a catchy tagline: Sarkari School Asarkari (Government school is effective).
The brainchild of 35-year-old Ranjan, the website aims to collate and compile the best practices pioneered by government school teachers across the country.
Launched in May 2019, the website has featured the positive stories of more than 150 teachers, including 100 state and national award winners.
Ranjan is himself a product of a government school and was hurt by the poor perception of government teachers the city-bred observers had.
Now, he runs the website from New Delhi and is ably supported by an army of 800 youth, who research and bring out the best pedagogical practices of government teachers into public domain. “I continue gathering information on teachers, who are silently inspiring the nation,” Ranjan said.
He invites the best performing government teachers to share their practices with other through sarkarischool.in.
So far, around 500 teachers form 25 states have shared their experiences and techniques. Among the top visitors to the website are Sharvan Kumar from Varanasi, Rajrani Sharma from Meerut, Lomas Dhungel from Sikkim, mother-daughter teacher duo Usha Singh and Shipra Ravi Bhardwaj from Jaunpur, (late) Sanjay Prasad Singh from Bihar’s Banka district, Sonam Gyaltsan from Ladakh and Poonam Yadav from Bihar.
All of these luminaries have been awarded by the state and the Central governments for their contributions.