PM Modi urges teachers to raise awareness about drugs, reduce screen time

Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged teachers to raise awareness among students about drugs and help reduce their screen time. Interacting with national award-winning teachers, he stressed the need to monitor students' behaviour and encourage creative pursuits beyond academic performance

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to teachers to make students aware of the menace of drugs and urged them to help reduce their screen time.

Interacting with national award-winning teachers on Friday, on the eve of Teachers’ Day, Modi said everyone in society should encourage students to pursue creative activities.

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He emphasised that teachers need to look beyond students’ academic performance and pay attention to their behaviour and everyday lives.

The prime minister said teachers have an increasingly important role to play in children’s lives now that joint-family set-ups are becoming less common.

On drugs, Modi said that in some big cities and universities, it is difficult to identify whether anyone is affected by the problem, as no one knows who gives whom what.

“In these circumstances, teachers should take the initiative for awareness and also observe minutely if any change (in behaviour) is witnessed in any child,” he said.

“You should not allow the childhood of a student to die. The biggest contribution can be given by the teachers for keeping childhood alive in students’ lives,” he said.

A video of the interaction was released on Saturday.