National Award to Teachers | Ministry of Education, GoI

Overview

The National Awards to Teachers were first instituted in 1958 to recognize excellence and commitment of teachers in shaping the minds as well as future of the youth. From mid-60s, 5th September came to be the fixed date for the function on account of birthday of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, former President of India. The award was to accord public recognition to meritorious teachers working in elementary and secondary schools.

The guidelines of the National Awards to Teachers Scheme were revised in the year 2018. The basic premise is that the new scheme should be transparent, fair, and reward meritorious teachers so that they could be held as examples and inspiration for other teachers. The features of the new scheme are as under:

In the revised guidelines there is a provision for online self-nominations from teachers which are invited on https://nationalawardstoteachers.education.gov.in.
All regular teachers are eligible and no minimum years of service is required. This enabled meritorious young teachers to apply.
The numbers of awards have been rationalized to 45+2, as against the earlier 378, thereby restoring the prestige of the awards.
In addition, 2 teachers under Special Category could be selected from differently abled teachers etc., if any.
No State, UT or Organization has a quota in the final selection. This encouraged them to compete for the awards truly at National level.
The final selection is done by an Independent Jury from amongst nominations received from States/UTs and Organizations, thereby ensuring that the role of these agencies was not diluted under the new scheme.
The nominated teachers make a presentation before the Jury for final selection. This ensures that all of them are given an opportunity to share the work done by them.

The rationalized number of awards restored the prestige of the awards and with enhanced transparency and the sanctity of the teachers started taking this National Awards to Teachers seriously and reverentially of the selection process.

High quality films of one minute duration on the exemplary work done by each one of the awardees are being made since 2018. The films are shot on location in the respective schools of the awardees, artistically and succinctly capturing the wide gamut of innovative activities like promotion of joyful learning through art & theatre resource mobilization from community, use of free educational apps & ICT, development of school nutrition garden etc.

For the year 2022, after the online self nomination process followed by 3 tier selection process at District, State and National level, Hon’ble President of India conferred the awards to 45 Awardees on 5th September, 2022 in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. A documentary film on each of the 45 Awardee Teachers was also shown during the live telecast of the program on Doordarshan.

Teachers Day Messages From :

For more details, click here: https://nationalawardstoteachers.education.gov.in

2 minutes, 9 seconds