National honour for Fatehgarh Sahib teacher Jagtar Singh Manela who turned dump yard into smart school

Surinder Bhardwaj

Fatehgarh Sahib, August 20

Jagtar Singh Manela of Fatehgarh Sahib has not only brought laurels to the district, but to the entire state after being selected for this year’s National Awards to Teachers.

He is among the 44 teachers shortlisted by the Ministry of Education and will be conferred with the award by President Ram Nath Kovind on Teacher’s Day, September 5.

He was first appointed as a teacher at Government Primary School, Badesha Kalan, in 2007, which was in a dilapidated condition. “I worked hard and converted it into a smart school. Later, I was transferred to Government Primary School, Manela, which is my native village, as the head teacher in 2015. I am an alumnus of this school,” he said.

Credits wife

My wife Bhupinder Kaur, who teaches in the same school, has been my source of inspiration. —Jagtar Singh Manela

“The school building was declared unsafe in 2011 and the PWD Department had suggested razing it. I came to know that someone had donated one acre for the primary school in the past, which had been reduced to a dumping ground. With the help of the village panchayat, I got a boundary wall erected and constructed a state-of-the-art school building with the help of donations,” the 40-year-old teacher said.

The school now has six air-conditioned classrooms with projectors, CCTV cameras and other gadgets, a library, playground and parks, which were constructed at a cost of Rs 75 lakh. Manela said Education Secretary Krishan Kumar managed to get a grant of Rs 20 lakh released for the school building.