‘Teachers on the way’ campaign launched

Mangaluru: Teacher couple Chethan Koppa and Akshatha Kudla have launched ‘Teachers on the way campaign’, an attempt to engage the public, especially parents, in discussion on the present education system and raise funds for government schools lacking basic facilities.
The campaign was launched by MLA Dr Y Bharath Shetty on Sunday. Chethan Koppa, a Kannada and social science teacher at the Ulaibettu Government higher primary school told TOI that they launched the campaign to understand the present education system from the common man’s perspective. “Whenever we interact with parents inside the school campus, it is generally about the student’s academic performance. We would like parents to understand and find answers to a few questions,” he said.
The programme will begin with his wife Akshatha, a mimicry artist and a Kannada teacher at St Aloysius Gonzaga School, presenting a mimicry show and songs in some of the busiest streets.
“Once people gather, we will be trying to seek answers to questions such as why don’t we hear anything about those students who scored 100/ 100 in all subjects later in life? Why is the crime rate increasing as people are getting educated and so on. At the same time, we will interact with panchayat development officers of the area and try to understand the condition of the government schools. In case such schools need any kind of assistance, we will try to raise funds from the public,” Chethan said. The couple plans to cover all districts of Karnataka for a year. Since Dasara holidays have been declared for schools, they will be travelling and interacting with people every day, and once the regular classes resume, they plan to take up this campaign during the weekends. The entire campaign is being documented.
The symbolic launch of this programme was carried out on Saturday with Chethan drawing a 50X53 feet stencil art of Mahatma Gandhi. In 2019, he found a place in the Exclusive World records for the 11 X 10.6 ft stencil portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. Akshatha, a former student of Swaroopa - Alternative Composite Education School, draws inspiration from Swaroopa director Gopadkar, who is also her mentor.