Developing Low-Cost Education Tools & Innovative Techniques Bags Rajinder Kumar National Award

Rajinder Kumar, a 44-year-old teacher, posted at Government Primary School in Wara Bhaika, is one of the 47 recipients of the National Teacher’s Award 2020. Kumar gained fame and acknowledgement because of his schooling techniques and innovative low-cost teaching tools in the primary education sector. 

Being a Major in Physics and a Bachelor of Education with a teaching experience of over a decade, Kumar is more than eligible for promotion to higher class teaching, but he does not aspire that. In the initial years of his career, he realised how crucial the primary study is in a student’s life and how people usually don’t pay any attention to these fundamental years. Hence, he decided to continue teaching the primary section and develop better techniques to improve their learning process. 

“My wife, who also holds an MSc degree in physics, and I teach in the same school. We both got promotion as science teachers but we turned it down because we wanted to work in the primary classes. In the last few years, we have developed new interesting techniques for teaching, which we further shared with other schools as well and as a result, students showed more interest in education,” he told Hindustan Times.

Kumar knew that to improve classroom teaching and learning, it was imperative to develop innovative equipment and equip the lab with better systems. “As a physics student, I always had an interest in electronics and I like to work on machines. I have made a team of volunteers, including carpenters and electricians, and together, we develop new equipment. We have developed a listening lab in the school for just Rs 1,200, which costs around Rs 35,000 in the market,” he said.

Advertisement

Kumar continues to shower his students with innovations even during the shutdown when the classes have shifted online worldwide. “I have prepared e-content for the study,” he added.