COIMBATORE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative to interact with school students on Teacher’s Day via live chat has drawn flak from academic circles.
Recently, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) issued a circular to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) instructing it to make arrangements, including TV sets, cable connections, projectors and generators/inverters, at all schools to broadcast Modi’s Q&A session with students on September 5.
However, the contents of the circular have not gone down well with many. According to a CBSE school principal, “Not every school has access to these facilities. Some feel that they are being forced.”
S Arumainathan, president of TN Students Parents Welfare Association (TNSPA), said, “As most of the CBSE schools operate till 2 pm, the session would entail their departure be delayed, as the programme is scheduled after regular class hours (2.30 pm - 5 pm).”
Another principal said that a day that teachers generally spent taking part in cultural programmes organised by students would be spent in the laborious task of organising the broadcast. “The circular states that any laxity in arrangement would be viewed seriously,” the principal added.
K Navamani, president of Coimbatore Sahodaya Schools Complex, said that it would further tax teachers as they had no experience in planning such ‘strenuous’ activity.
A Chennai-based educationist told Express that such activities would set a bad precedent and other political leaders would follow suit. “There will be an attempt to thrust their ideologies on young minds and education will be made politics,” he added.