(Top) Girls of DAV school in Bhubaneswar prepare greetings cards for their teachers. Telegraph picture. Sudents paying respect to their teachers on Teachers’ Day last year (file picture)

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 4: Students across the state are busy preparing to celebrate Teachers’ Day on Monday.

From designing attractive greeting cards embossed with touching quotes and messages to baking cakes and choosing big bouquets of flowers, students are coming up with ingenious ways to make the day memorable for their teachers.

Senior students of DAV Public School (Pokhariput) are gearing up for a role reversal tomorrow. Every year on Teachers’ Day, they dress up as their teachers and take classes of their juniors while the teachers get an opportunity to unwind and get pampered by the students.

“We will reach the school early and complete the decoration and in the afternoon, we will organise competitions such as musical chair, Hindi antakshari, quiz and other entertaining activities for them,” said Amrit Mohanty, a Class IX student.

Girls, on the other hand, are quite excited about donning the role of teachers and wearing saris to school. While most of them are taking a pick from their mothers’ cupboards, others are busy shopping for the perfect six-yard drape and matching accessories.

“Since we have to be careful about what we wear to school, I have bought a simple cotton sari and ethnic jewellery for tomorrow,” said Pooja Mishra, a Class XII student of DAV, Pokhariput.

At Sai International School, teachers have planned a surprise for the students. While the teachers have been preparing dance and song performances, the students, too, have quite a few plans up their sleeve.

“We would get cakes and flowers for our respective class teachers and have planned some fun contests,” said Vishal Bikram Sahoo, a Class X student.

KIIT University would celebrate the day by awarding “certificates of appreciation” to the physically challenged students of the institution. “We have also made handmade cards and gifts for the teachers,” said Satyashiva Das, a student.

A state-level teachers’ award function would be held at the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, on Monday morning. Here, chief minister Naveen Patnaik would give away the awards to 63 teachers, including 30 from primary and 33 from secondary school levels.

On the other hand, nearly 24,000 teachers and employees of 1,983 block grant high schools have decided to observe Teachers’ Day as “Black Day”.

They have been on an indefinite strike since August 1 demanding immediate abolition of block grant payment and reinstatement of the grant-in-aid system.

“We would wear black badges and hold protests in front of all the district collector offices. It is very unfortunate that because of government apathy, we have been forced to observe September 5 as a black day. The government is allowing the block grant institutions to perish. No one understands our misery. No other state treats its teachers in such disrespectful way,” said Prashant Pati, general secretary of the Orissa Block Grant Secondary School Teachers and Employees Association. He added the association was also planning to gherao the 314 block offices across the state on September 8.