The Governor of Uttarakhand Baby Rani Maurya has said that teachers should recognise individual interests of the students and try to hone their intrinsic talents. She was speaking on the occasion of Governor’s Teachers awards-2019 at Raj Bhawan on Thursday. The programme was organised on the occasion of Teachers' day. The Governor congratulated the teachers who received the awards and called upon the teachers to inculcate innovative skills in their teaching methods. She added that the scientific temper should be promoted and emphasised that the education system should promote skill development among students so that they become job givers instead of job seekers.

The Governor also stressed the need to improve the quality of education being imparted in Government schools and asked the education department to formulate a concrete plan for it.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Trivendra Singh Rawat, said that the Government machinery and society should work in synergy in development of the nation. He said that his Government would ensure that lack of resources does not come in the way of the studies of bright students. The CM said that the State Government would soon start a ‘ Know Your country’ scheme in which top 25 students would be sent on a tour of the country.

The CM informed that an ultra modern residential school would be set up by the Government in next academic year and admissions in this school would be done on the basis of the an entrance examination. “In this school, best facilities would be provided and we are planning to set up a system of fees in which a percentage of the annual income of parents would be charged,’’ he said.

The CM added that the Uttarakhand Government has started a scheme to adopt the severely malnourished children in the State. There are 27,000 malnourished children in Uttarakhand while 1,600 children come under the category of severely malnourished.

The Education Minister, Arvind Pandey, said that marked positive changes have occurred in the education department in recent times.

He, however, accepted that lack of teachers is continuing to affect the education department but added that the matter of appointments of guest teachers is pending in Supreme Court (SC).

The Minister lauded the decision of State Government to impose two child norm and minimum educational qualification criteria for the candidates in the ensuing election of three-tier Panchayati Raj system and said that it would help in controlling population and development of villages.

A total of 18 teachers were felicitated by the Governor on the occasion.

The secretary, education, R Meenakshi Sundaram, Secretary to Governor, R K Sudhanshu, senior officers of education department and teachers were also present on the occasion.