Designer jackets for Madhya Pradesh teachers to instil pride

New Delhi: At a time when Madhya Pradesh has achieved the dubious distinction of running 574 primary schools with a “single teacher” and over one lakh schools in the BJP-ruled state have no electricity, the state government is keen on throwing money on cosmetic steps to instil pride in teachers by mandating jackets as a dress code.

A new order of the education ministry says that all government teachers will have to wear jackets, designed by the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), with a logo saying “Rashtra Nirmata”.

Speaking to a news channel on Saturday, state education minister Vijay Shah said that the logic behind the decision is that teachers “should feel that they are doing a great job”.

Mr Shah observed that the order on jackets for teachers will come into effect from the next academic year.

Responding to a question in the Assembly last year, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had acknowledged that “there are still more than one lakh government schools that do not have power”.

A few weeks ago, the state government decided to make the education system “better” by introducing smileys, instead of marks, for grading students.

The smileys are given as per the efficiency and ability of children to learn.

There are also reports that earlier the education minister had issued a diktat that while responding to the roll call, students will respond with “Jai Hind” instead of saying “present sir/madam”.