Bhubaneswar: Teacher’s Day celebrations to go online

BHUBANESWAR: With educational institutes across the state shut till the last week of October, schools in the city have decided to celebrate Teacher’s Day through the virtual platform on Saturday. Both teachers and students are planning to host various programmes online. However, they will miss the physical presence of each other on the occasion.
“I appreciate the efforts of our children to acquire knowledge through the online platform. For years our students have mesmerized us with their performances on Teacher’s Day. This year too, I look forward to some great shows online,” Susmita Samantoroy, a teacher at SAI International School, said.
The day is celebrated with great fervour in schools every year to mark the birthday of great academician and philosopher, Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan. But owing to the lockdown to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, teachers and students have not been going to schools since March. Classes have moved online since then.
“Like all the other festivals and occasions that we celebrated online, Teacher’s Day too will be experienced in a similar manner. On this day, children show their gratitude to teachers and put up cultural performances, give speeches, cards and flowers. This time they will interact with their teachers online and can also perform on the virtual platform,” Debendra Pati, a senior teacher of DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur, said.
School authorities have decided that a few teachers and principals will go to school and pay floral tributes to Dr Radhakrishnan following social distance and other Covid-19 guidelines.
The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan has asked children of all Kendriya Vidylayas to take a selfie in school uniform, write a few lines about their favourite teacher and post both the photos on social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp with the hashtag #OurTeachersOurHeroes. Some schools said students can write about more than one teachers.
“Teacher’s Day is going to be a different experience this year as we will celebrate online. Taking a selfie and writing about teachers is alright, but I don’t have my own Facebook or WhatsApp account and uploading the same on my parents’ account may not solve the purpose,” Arushi Rath, a Class VIII student of Kendriya Vidyalaya in the city, said.