SCHOOLS in Uttar Pradesh have responded to the Centre’s request for a list of “talented” students with whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi would interact from New Delhi on the eve of Teachers’ Day (September 4). As per the communication sent by the Additional Secretary in the Union Ministry of Human Resource and Development (HRD) on August 24, each state/union territory board in the country had been asked to send names of two students. The Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs) and Navodaya schools, on the other hand, could recommend as many as they deemed “talented” - those who had “won awards in national-level competitions and have had achievements on the global level”. Acting on the Ministry’s request, the KVs, Navodaya Schools, and those under UP Board in the state have sent a list of students from which a few would be selected for the PM’s interaction session. Significantly, though, schools under UP Board in Varanasi, the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary constituency, did not recommend a single name, while UP Board schools in only 10 of the state’s 75 districts forwarded a list, comprising 57 names. Deputy Director, Secondary Education, UP Board, Vikas Srivastava said since many districts, including Varanasi, did not have the facilities to keep track of students’ achievements, schools could not choose names for recommendations when such a request from the Centre arrived. He informed that one girl was selected because she has her name listed in the Limca Book of Records for learning 700 shlokas while another student was selected for having won awards in the national-level Olympiad programmes in various subjects. On the occasion, the PM would release a coin in the memory of former President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan besides interacting with the selected students at the Manekshaw Centre in Delhi. For the interaction session, the state governments across the country have been advised to make arrangements for video-conferencing at various centres in their respective states. UP Principal Secretary (Secondary Education) Jitendra Kumar said that the HRD Ministry had yet not made it clear whether students would be invited to Delhi. But a senior KV official in Delhi told The Indian Express that the PM would interact with a group of students face-to-face in Delhi while those in states would be addressed through video conferencing since it would not be possible to accommodate students from across the country at the centre in Delhi. Kumar, however, said that “if directives were received, arrangements would be made by the NIC at different centres (in UP) to facilitate the interaction programme.”
