More than 100 schoolchildren of Samantarapur UGUP School marked the Global Action Week (GAW) through their paintings on theme ‘Every child needs a teacher’ here in the city. The programme was organised by the National Coalition for Education (NCE), a national level voluntary organisation working on child rights.
The theme has significance in many ways. While children of private schools go well with all facilities at schools, remaining are those poor kids who are tied with a bad luck in the Government schools.
Children of public school face numerous challenges on the way to their free, compulsory and quality elementary education. Majority of public school face shortage of teachers which impact adversely on those poor kids. Even though the State Government is recruiting teachers to fill gaps, all of them are contractual. Untrained teachers with a fraction of salary of a regular trained teacher usually are demotivated to teach children with free minds. In order to provide free, compulsory education to every child, there is a need to fill the teacher gaps in elementary schools.
The programme was conducted by Naba Kishor Pujari and Dr Subhashree Das of NCE. Among others, school management committee (SMC) members and teachers of the school were present.
During the week-long observance of GAW, NCE will organise interaction with teachers, parents and SMC members on quality education and the role of teachers in school. later, a charter of demand will be presented to the Governor of Odisha on the core issues of Right To Education Act implementation in the State.
The children will send post cards to the Governor for immediate intervention on teachers’ gap in their respective schools.