Govt to send over 5,000 scientists to hold lectures in schools, colleges

New Delhi: Over 5,000 "highly accomplished"scientists working with various departments under the Scienceand Technology Ministry will devote time to impart educationto students of various schools and colleges in the country.[caption id="attachment_1702433" align="alignleft" width="380"] Representational image. AFP[/caption]Announcing the decision, Union Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said it would be "mandatory" for thescientists "in our departments to actually, formally, takelecture classes" in schools and colleges.The minister said it was decided after drawing inspiration from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's interaction with schoolstudents on Teachers' Day during which he said, "each one ofus engage ourselves in some kind of teaching"."I am glad to announce today that we are going to make itmandatory for the scientists in our departments to actually,formally, take lecture classes in schools and colleges. It isa new concept for a country like India," Singh said.The minister said this kind of engagement would be "freeof any honorarium" and it would be part of the duty thescientists have already committed to do."In order to further institutionalise it we have alsodevised a method...make it mandatory that every scientistbelonging to this department would expecting to devote atleast 12 hours of actual teaching classes, lecturing," he toldreporters at a meeting convened to announce NDA government's100-day achievements in the field of Science and Technology.Singh said the Ministry will collaborate with the HRDMinistry to work out the modalities and see how over 5,000scientists of the two departments of the Ministry--Science andTechnology and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research--can devote their time to take part in academic activities.He said there would be a review and performance evaluationsystem to ensure successful implementation of new initiative."There will be a review every one year. The kind of lecturing...so that they can improve upon that. And everythree years we would have a performance evaluation on the kindof work done by each individual scientist who are engaged inthe teaching," Singh said.The Minister said various academic institutions across thecountry would be covered under the programme but major focuswould be on "public-funded educational institutions".PTI