Finland’s India Consular visits Fatehgarh Sahib village school

Fatehgarh Sahib, June 23

Consular of Embassy of Finland in Delhi, Liisa Toivonen, accompanied by the state Project Director of Smart School, Surekha Thakur, and state Project Officer Sunita Prabhakar visited the Government Primary School, Manela, and appreciated the infrastructure, environment, cleanliness and education being provided to the students. Liisa invited the teachers to visit Finland so that the education system in both countries can be improved through mutual cooperation. Surekha Thakur said that the project of making Manila school a ‘happiness school’ is being started where children will be taught through new mediums. For the same, an amount of over Rs 1 crore is being released, she said.

It is worth mentioning that the Government Primary School of Manela was awarded for being the best school under ‘My School My Pride’ category of the Swachh Bharat Mission by the state government in 2019.

School teacher Jagtar Singh, who was awarded state award in 2017 and the President’s National Award in 2021 for making the school a model school and for the reforms in the field of education, highlighted how he started the work of improving the school in the year 2016. He said that the major contribution was made by village panchayat, village welfare club and school teachers. He said that the number of students in the year 2016 was 43 which has now increased to 172. He said that the school has arranged buses to bring the students from adjoining 15 villages. He said that children in their school are given modern education through working models, so that they may understand everything easily. Singh said that there is also a proposal from the Punjab Government to send the teachers of the best government schools to Finland for exposure.

State Resource Person Harjit Kaur, District Education Officer Shalu Mehra, District Coordinator Smart School Ram Bhushan, Gurdeep Mangat, state team member Jaspreet Singh were also present.