(From left) Award-winning teachers Raj Mangala, Ankesh Anupam Srivastava, Himmangshu Shekhar and Amitabh Shahi at Gandhi Maidan in Patna on Friday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, Nov. 11: Microsoft India today felicitated teachers from Bihar with the Innovate Teachers Leadership Award (ITLA) at the National Education Day function at Gandhi Maidan for developing innovative lesson plans using technology to improve classroom learning.

Pratik Mehta, the director, public sector, Microsoft India, presented the awards on behalf of the company to honour educators who innovate and improve learning techniques through technology integration.

The teachers feted were Amitabh Shahi from Mukherjee Seminary High School, Muzaffarpur, Nishi Kant Nirav from Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav Sarvodya High School, Patna, Himmanshu Shekhar from Senior Secondary High School, Phulwarisharif, Ankesh Anupam Srivastva from Lokmanya High School, Chapra, and Raj Mangala from Town High School, Hajipur.

Launched in 2003, the ITLA award is an initiative designed to actively increase access to technology and improve its use in learning.

Raj Mangala, one of the awardees, told The Telegraph: “I had prepared a project on bone marrow using video, animation and audio.” Mangala took around a month to prepare the project. In the project, Mangala used slides and diagrams to show what bone marrow cancer is and what its symptoms are. She added: “Through the project, teaching biology is easy as now students can grasp the things in a better and quicker way.”

Earlier, chief minister Nitish Kumar formally ina- ugurated the National Education Day function through video-conferencing from Bettiah while on his Sewa Yatra.

Speaking from Bettiah, Nitish said: “The best tribute we can give to educationist Maulana Abul Kalam Azad is by celebrating his birthday as Education Day. Our focus should be on providing quality education and stress should be laid on science subjects and mathematics.”

“Bihar has always been considered as a fertile land for mathematicians, it is the karmabhoomi of great mathematician Aryabhatta. Efforts should be made so that we can regain the lost glory,” added the chief minister. Efforts should be made to develop scientific temperament in students by initiating more research activities.

Nitish reiterated his government’s commitment to provide quality education. Nitish said: “Only 3.5 per cent children in the state are out of school and this figure will come down in near future but the biggest challenge for his government and the education department is to provide quality education.”

The chief minister once again stressed that the education-level in Bihar has improved through various initiatives taken by his government such as the Balika Cycle Yojana and Poshak Yojana.

Prior to the launch of Balika Cycle Yojana, there were only 1.7 lakh girls studying in Class IX but the launch of the cycle scheme for girls of Class IX has taken the number of students to more 5 lakh.