India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi plays teacher on Teachers’ Day
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Version 0 of 1. NEW DELHI — The usually low-key Teachers' Day celebration turned into a pitched political battle in India on Friday. In a first, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, turned into a teacher and delivered a speech to school students across India on the day meant for teachers. To organize the largest viewership for this televised event, schools purchased televisions, mounted projection screens, ordered back-up electricity and shifted schedules to accommodate Modi’s speech. “What is the reason that the best of our students don’t want to be teachers?” Modi asked. He then took some prepared questions from students and spoke about career goals, volunteer work and the world beyond “books, TV and computers.” Not everybody was happy. Why is the prime minister trying to be the prime teacher, some asked. Others questioned why Modi was hijacking a day that was meant for teachers? “It would have been better if he had given his sermon during school hours, not after,” said Manish Tewari, a spokesman for the opposition Congress Party. He said the government is “inconveniencing teachers, students and parents.” @ruchicatomar Tweeted: A moment's silence for all the teachers across India.Their day hijacked by PM's speech and extra hours at school minding restless children. The news portal First Post ran an essay titled “Modi-ji, why not leave the kids alone.” India’s minister for human resource development Smriti Irani struggled to convince critics that she had only “requested” schools have the students listen to the speech and did not force them. But her ministry told schools to report how many attended. In an editorial Friday titled "Command and control: Insread of politicizing Teachers' Day government must push education reforms," the Times of India newspaper said: “As things stand, the education system reeks of a bygone era of command and control where a student is seen as a passive recipient of knowledge. Instead of politicizing Teachers’ Day government must push education reforms.” @chitraSD Tweeted: If we can use this day to start a national conversation on what teachers are paid in India, we would have advanced a little. #TeachersDay Modi also spoke of building separate rest rooms in schools for girls. But in some schools, students had to sit through more than one speech. Not to be left out of Modi’s school outreach, local chief ministers of state governments also addressed students, several hours before Modi did. |