Patna University honours 21 teachers

PATNA: Former Nalanda Open University vice-chancellor (VC) Vijay Shankar Dubey on Thursday called upon teachers to introspect the reasons behind the gradual decline in their honour and respect in society.
Speaking as the chief guest of a function organized by Patna University (PU) at Wheeler Senate House on the occasion of Teachers’ Day, Dubey said, “You should find out why PU is not producing teachers like Ram Sharan Sharma and A S Altekar, who had brought glory to the university in the fifties and sixties by dint of their work.Nearly six decades ago, only Patna and Allahabad universities were regarded as centres of excellence in higher education.”
Dubey regretted that PU had recently been awarded B+ grade by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council. He said, “A university is known by the standard of research conducted by its faculty members and students. For quality research, it must have well-equipped laboratories and modern libraries.”
PU VC Rash Bihari Prasad Singh, in his presidential remarks, pointed out that it was Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who had presented the real meaning of Indian philosophy and religion to the entire world.
Sharing some anecdotes, the VC said, “He was a popular teacher and commanded great love and respect from his students. When he was appointed the vice-chancellor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU), his philosophy students of Calcutta University were not ready to relieve him. They allowed him to join BHU only on the condition that he would come to Calcutta from Varanasi for two days every week to engage their classes. Similarly, once, when he had to catch a train for Madras from Mysore, his old car did not start. All the students, who had come to see him off, asked Radhakrishnan to sit in the car and pushed it from his residence to the railway station.”
Meanwhile, altogether 21 teachers, including nine retired teachers of the university, were felicitated at the function. The retired teachers included Ashok Kumar Sinha and Tara Sinha (English), I N Sinha (philosophy), Amar Nath Sinha (Hindi), C P Singh (zoology), A K Roy (physics), R A Mahto (geology), B N Singh (labour and social welfare), and Girija Singh (music).
Others, who were feted, were S K Singh (statistics), Shekhar Mishra (physics), Maya Shankar and Daisy Narain (history), Ravi Kiran Sharma and Usha Verma (geography), K C Sinha (mathematics), Jayadeo Mishra (ancient Indian history and archaeology), Ramesh Shukla (geology), Janardan Prasad (economics), Poonam Singh (philosophy) and Shardendu Kumar (Hindi).
Besides, six students — Salvi Kriti, Chanda Kumari and Abhijit Kumar (English section) and Priyanka Bharti, Ravi Chaurasia and Nandan Kumar (Hindi section) — were given prizes for winning an essay contest organized by PU. The topic of the essay was ‘Changing Role of Teachers in the Digital Era’.
At the outset, PU pro-VC Dolly Sinha welcomed the guests and registrar Manoj Mishra proposed the vote of thanks.
Celebrations at NOU: Three retired course coordinators of Nalanda Open University (NOU) — Kailash Mahto, Bhupinder Kalsi and Parshuram Singh — were felicitated at a function on Thursday. NOU’s former vice-chancellor (VC) Vijay Shankar Dubey was the chief guest of the event and its present VC R B P Singh presided over the function.