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Former DPI, MC councillor among 34 apply for Chandigarh’s voluntary teaching plan
The Chandigarh education department had sent out various advertisements, inviting serving and retired bureaucrats, doctors, judicial officers, journalists, engineers, defence officers, advocates and other professionals to teach government schoolchildren on voluntary basis once a week, without any honorarium or allowance
Former UT director, public instructions (DPI, Schools), SK Setia and ward number 2 councillor Maheshinder Singh Sidhu are among 34 people who have applied to the UT education department to become voluntary teachers.
The UT education department had sent out various advertisements, inviting serving and retired bureaucrats, doctors, judicial officers, journalists, engineers, defence officers, advocates and other professionals to teach government schoolchildren on voluntary basis once a week, without any honorarium or allowance. The last date for submissions to the UT director, school education, was May 20.
Apart from Setia and Sidhu, who is a former senior deputy mayor and a practising advocate, others who have applied to teach voluntarily include former Haryana chief town planner Gurmeet Kaur Sandhu; Deepika Gandhi, an associate professor at Chandigarh College of Architecture; and Desh Kumar Pandey, former associate professor at Post Graduate Government College for Girls, Sector 42.
Among the other applicants are Surinder Singh, who has eight years of teaching experience, audit officer Ashwani Kumar, Balwinder Kumar, who has taught at one of the NITs, dental surgeon Tasneef Kausar, IT project manager Shreya Kapoor, corporate consultant SL Munjan and yoga teacher Chhavi Rajpal. Three journalists have also applied to volunteer, as have some students, including Sector-28 resident, Vivek Kumar, who is currently pursuing MA.
School education director to ramp up programme
While calling it a good turnout, Harsuhinder Pal Singh Brar, UT director, school education (DSE), said he aimed to rope in even more volunteers for the programme before the summer vacations get over.
Speaking about this, Brar said, “I am writing to various associations for the support of ex-servicemen and officers. The city has a large number of veterans, who have seen wars like the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war. They will be able to inspire children the most and we hope that we will get some volunteers from them.”
The voluntary classes will start as soon as the summer vacations get over by the end of June. Each volunteer was asked for their preferred school and subject they wanted to teach, based on which, a final list has been prepared. The voluntary teachers will be informed about their assignments by the third week of June.
