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For the best teacher and student

COIMBATORE: After a year-long process of applications, presentations and interviews, Air India’s RANK and BOLT 2007 awards for the best teacher and student have been announced.

The awards seek to promote active citizenship by sensitising teachers and students and involving the community and business to join the effort.

The Broad Outlook Learner Teacher (BOLT) Award went to Dr. Faiqa Saulat Khan, a social science teacher at the St. Joseph’s Convent Senior Secondary School, Bhopal. The Race for Awareness and Knowledge (RANK) Award went to Dhanya Shankar K.S. from St. Mary’s College, Thrissur, Kerala.

This is the second year of the award, which is part of Air India’s Reaching Out Project, and 71 State awardees had met in Mumbai. The panel of judges includes corporate honchos, judges, and others including writer Shobhaa De, social activist-MP Priya Dutt, and fitness guru Leena Mogre.

The participants knew one another from their week-long ambassadorial visit to Singapore in October 2007. A ride was arranged in an open double-decker bus to show them around Mumbai.

Many of them were from rural areas and towns.

For Dr. Faiqa, the award was a gratifying surprise. To her, the experience of participation itself was enriching. Did it help her grow as a teacher and human being? “Yes. At every step.”

She says the process helped her identify her goals and brought clarity. Her students notice a difference too. “I now teach in a more understanding manner, and one that is practical and can be implemented. And I teach by setting examples that my students follow.”

For the award process, Dr. Faiqa focussed on a comprehensive environment education programme encompassing awareness, understanding, skills, evaluation and application of skills to preserve, conserve and protect the environment.

Dhanya Shankar, who bagged the best student award, is a quiet but bold teenager who has been the general secretary of her college union. But she had wondered if she would be able to compete with her more vocal city-bred counterparts.

“I had not faced interviewers before. The award did so much for my confidence,” she says.

This aspiring civil servant’s mission statement is to create a developed nation with the active participation of youth, society, military, politicians, religious leaders and economists.

And, above all, be a great citizen who discharges her duty towards her home, neighbourhood, college and country.

The runners-up for BOLT are: Sanjoy Acharyya (Sikkim), Christine N. Beale (Meghalaya), Meenakshi Chatterjee (Tripura), Dr. Aaron Gnanadas (Nagaland), Sonia Jagga (Delhi) and Rakesh Singh (Uttar Pradesh).

For RANK, the runners-up are Anjali Chandrashekar (Tamil Nadu), Zorinmawii Lungtau (Mizoram), Manisha (Jharkhand), Shaan (Madhya Pradesh), Nishant Singh (Uttarakhand) and Maitreyee Wairagkar (Maharashtra).

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