From Manduadih to Lucknow: the teacher who made her primary school Nipun takes the state award

Neelam Rai, an assistant teacher at the primary school in Manduadih, will receive the Uttar Pradesh government's State Teacher Award 2025 on Teachers' Day, September 5. The recognition follows what she did with her own school: bringing it up to "Nipun" standard under the Nipun Bharat Mission, the national push for foundational literacy and numeracy in the early classes. The selection was not quick. Four teachers from Varanasi were nominated for the award. Rai went through two rounds of interviews — one in April, a second in Lucknow in August — and finished with the highest marks among the district's candidates. The panel weighed enrolment growth, a fall in dropouts, progress against Nipun mission targets, innovation in classroom teaching, use of digital tools, and how the children actually performed. The award carries ₹20,000 and a two-year extension of service. Rai is originally from Ballia district and now lives in Varanasi. For a council school in a city ward, "Nipun" is not a plaque on a wall — it means the children in the early classes can read and handle the arithmetic expected of them. That the state has picked a teacher from one such school in the week before Teachers' Day says something about where the bar is being set for Kashi's council classrooms.

Compiled by HelloBanaras from public sources: Amar Ujala