Patna, May 11: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has donned a new role, that of a schoolteacher.
As part of the ongoing Vishwas Yatra (trust march), Nitish visits various government schools and asks students to recite tables and rhymes. He corrects the children’s mistakes, counsels them and guides teachers.
Nitish’s yatra, which has been taking him across the state, began on April 28. It aims at assessing the impact of development schemes launched by his government over the past four- and- half years.
He completed the second leg of the tour on Sunday, having travelled across eight districts in north Bihar. He planned to cover the entire state before it goes to polls later this year.
The chief minister paid special attention to the condition of government- run schools and other learning centres.
On the first day of his tour, at Bagahi in West Champaran district, Nitish noticed a decrepit middle school. He entered a classroom and asked the students to recite numerical tables and count to evaluate the quality of education imparted there. At a primary school in Barharwa Lakhansen village in the same district, he watched the teacher teach Hindi alphabets and numbers.
By the time Nitish resumed the second leg of his tour on May 6, he had got into the teacher mode.
At Dhanchhiha village in Madhubani district, located 12 km from the Nepal border, he was impressed when the children recited a rhyme on literacy. At a nearby school, a girl who rattled off numbers up to 70 got a pat from the chief minister. He also advised her teacher to revert to the traditional rhyming method to help the students learn the tables by rote.
Nitish assessed the mid- day meal programme at various schools. Addressing rallies during the yatra, Nitish also enumerated the achievements of his government in the field of education and stressed the need for educating girls.
—Agencies