Every year, Teachers’ Day is celebrated in India on September 5, in remembrance of the birth anniversary of the first vice-president and second president Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. 

Unlike other years, when most schools and colleges would conduct Teachers’ Day programmes in the campuses, this year it will be observed virtually. Here are some special initiatives started by organisations on the occasion of Teacher’s Day:

Avanse Financial Services, an education-focused non-banking financial company (NBFC) launched a distinguished ‘Teachers’ Day’ education loan offer for children of the teaching fraternity who plan to pursue their higher education, for students who desire to take up teacher training courses and teachers who aspire to take up up-skilling courses. This offer is designed to support eligible education aspirants with an unsecured loan amount and a fastest sanction Turnaround Time of 72 hours of application. It will be available with a 0.5 percent reduction on the existing interest rate and 50 bps discount on the processing fee. This offer is valid from September 5 to 30, 2020. To avail the offer, aspirants can log on to www.avanse.com. 

To mark the occasion of Teachers’ Day, Ampersand Group launched a Pan-India campaign as a mark of gratitude to teachers for their contribution in ensuring continuity of education during the COVID-19 pandemic and their role in strengthening ECCE, as envisaged under the new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, implemented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The #ThankYouTeacher campaign was launched across Balwadis, Anganwadis, pre-schools (ECCE centres) and Adarsh Schools that are under the aegis of state governments and state government municipal bodies but run through public-private partnerships (PPP) with education institutions powered by Ampersand group.

This initiative covered over 700 Balwadis under the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, which achieved a total outreach of 20,000 students, 25 Anganwadis under the Ministry of Women & Child Development (MWCD) in Nashik (in Maharashtra)that was extended to over 600students. Further, around 5000 students were covered under the programmes initiated across schools of Hubble Adarsh School in Punjab. In addition, a ‘Plant a Tree’initiative was also held, under which students planted a tree with the name of a teacher on it. Self-shot videos and photographs of drawings, craft, song, poems, and other artistic creations dedicated to their teachers were also shared by students.

The CyberPeace Foundation announced a partnership with WhatsApp to create awareness on cyber safety among students. This is an effort to build on their earlier partnership with WhatsApp under the “e-Raksha” program that reached thousands of students. This association aims to reach about 15,000 students in five Indian states, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra by the end of this year as the first phase of a pan-India program.

The foundation will train teachers, parents and students using a co-created curriculum to arm them with tips and tricks to increase online safety for children in consultation with UNICEF and state police authorities. At the end of these trainings, the participants will create a “CyberPeace Club” to ensure that this knowledge is further institutionalized and manage a repository of guidance that other students can refer to for boosting online child safety. The curriculum that has been created by WhatsApp and CPF will focus on developmental skills and offer consultations with education boards, and governments at the state and national level.

Mumbai-based edtech company LEAD School launched the LEAD Teachers Academy on Teachers’ Day. The program and certification under this initiative will be free for all teachers. The school has already trained over 10,000 teachers across its partner-schools. LEAD Teachers Academy program is free and open to over 25 lakh teachers across India. The teachers will be trained in batches during the three-part certification programme that will help improve their teaching skills, bring them to date on the best teaching methodologies, and encourage them to deliver better results. The program focuses on three main areas of teacher training – Being the cause and growth mindset, Teaching skills in the online environment and Providing Emotional and social support.

Edtech company Meritnation, a part of Aakash Edutech Pvt. Ltd. has launched the third season of its popular ‘YouTeach’ contest for students, on Teachers’ Day. The contest will be on for a period of 15 days starting tomorrow. ‘YouTeach’ is a video upload contest hosted on the Meritnation app, where students are encouraged to upload a video of them teaching a concept, get their friends and family to ‘like’ it by upvoting it and stand a chance to win exciting prizes. Videos with the maximum ‘likes’ win. While the Super Exciting 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes are MacBook Air, Samsung Tablet, OnePlus Nord respectively, there are assured prizes for every participant. There are even class wise prizes to be won.

Avanti Fellows, Executive trustee, Vandana Goyal says, “In March, when all of India’s schools closed, Avanti was ready to take school home and online. Working through its government partners in Haryana, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh, daily lesson plans went into the hands of over 8 lakh students as Avanti collaborated with over 9,600 teachers across Hindi-speaking states in India via WhatsApp and YouTube. Avanti has reached 2 million students on YouTube with over 40,000 hours of content viewed during the lockdown. With permission and support from the central government body, JNV Samiti, over 1,500 students from Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya residential schools, in the throes of preparing for JEE and NEET exams, we’re able to continue their preparation through live classes on Zoom and Whatsapp conducted by 23 Avanti teachers. Avanti worked with 300 additional 12th-grade graduate students and assisted them in preparation for the rescheduled JEE Mains, NEET, and JEE Advanced. Phone calls to check on students’ emotional well-being, surveys to check on whether they had adequate rations, and building relationships by sharing their own COVID experiences and teaching with chalk on the floor of their home all served to ensure kids felt cared for and supported. Most of all, lakhs of students across India stayed connected to their education at a time when they were at the highest risk of being left behind.”

Read: Teachers’ Day: Keeping up with online classes in the COVID-19 era