Pioneer of computer education gets national award

One of the pioneers in introducing computer education in the country, who involved himself right from training teachers, preparation of syllabus and writing textbooks for Std IV to Std X, Sushanta Kumar Mukherjee was selected for the prestigious National Award to Teachers-2012 by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development recently.

Genius: Sushanta Kumar Mukherjee

A Navi Mumbai resident, Mukherjee has several achievements to his name. u00a0Having done his MSc in Physics, he joined the education department of the Atomic Energy Junior College in 1990 as a lecturer and has been teaching infotech.

One of his major achievements was his involvement in establishing a studio at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) for broadcasting educational programmes via Educational Satellite (EDUSAT) of ISRO.
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Besides, Mukherjee made videos of various experiments and uploaded them on YouTube for students' benefit. To ensure that the videos were of pristine quality, he underwent a training programme at the Film and Television Institute.

"It has been a wonderful and an eventful journey being a lecturer here for so long. I got many opportunities to contribute and give my best. In my opinion computer education is very essential and I am happy that I was able to contribute in its implementation throughout the country," Mukherjee said.

Elaborating his approach towards the students, Mukherjee he said every person was good, and it were the circumstances that changed him or her. "Same goes for students. So as a teacher it was my duty to understand why each student is different and deal with him or her accordingly."

Student-friendly
Commenting on Mukherjee, college principal T Kalathinathan said, "We are proud of him. He deserves the honour very much. As a teacher, he is dedicated and student-friendly. He is very inspiring and motivates students. That's his USP."

Not only is Mukherjee popular among the current batch of students, even the ex-students held him in high regard. u00a0Neha Gaokar, who passed out in 2011, said, "He was student-friendly in true sense and always approachable.

He has the knack of recognising talent in every student and makes him or her use it. He always understood our needs. For instance, college doesn't permit picnics for Class XII students. But he changed the rule saying that it was important as the students are under pressure and himself organised a picnic for us."u00a0