NITTTR Chennai gets sports centre, open educational resource

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated the centre and called for increased access to the internet especially in rural areas.

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated the Sports Centre and Open Educational Resource (OBR) at the National Institute of Technical Teachers Training & Research (NITTTR) in Chennai. 

Ensure there is no digital divide: Venkaiah Naidu 

While inaugurating the sport centre, he said while Central and state governments are taking measures to promote digital learning, it is important to ensure that there is no digital divide. To ensure this, he called for increased access to the internet especially in rural areas and remote places and to ‘keep inclusivity at the heart of the educational experience’. ‘The mantra should be — embrace, engage, enlighten and empower’, he said.  

Expressing concerns over the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education, he said school closures affected girls, disadvantaged children, those living in rural areas, children with disabilities and children from ethnic minorities more than their peers.  He laid emphasis on the importance of quality teacher training in India and suggested that one of the important measures is to upgrade the skills of teachers in digital learning. 

Need inspirational leaders in classrooms: Vice President 

Naidu said there is a need to create teachers who are ‘learners and creators of knowledge — teachers who touch lives and seek to uplift the human condition’. ‘We need inspirational, transformational leaders in our classrooms, especially in rural India’, he said. 

He lauded the role of teachers as ‘COVID warriors’ and doing their best to ensure the academic continuity of their students during the pandemic. He said the teaching community explored technology and showed ‘remarkable flexibility in reinventing their strategies and methodologies to support the learning of students’. 

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