Lucknow, March 25 :  President of Lucknow’s City Montessori School (CMS), Prof. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, delivered a talk on ‘The Myth and Reality of Teacher Shortage of India’ today at the 3rd Colombia Summit on the Indian Economy. The summit was organised by the Colombia University in partnership with the Consulate General of India in New York. In her talk, she addressed the widespread perception in India that the country has an acute teacher shortage in public elementary schools, analysing the current status of teachers in India vis-à-vis student enrolment data. She also called upon the students and teachers to develop global thinking along with their academic advancement. She said that the need of the hour is to produce world citizens who are imbued with character building human values that last a lifetime. Prof. Kingdon also highlighted the Broader and Bolder System of Education that prevails at CMS and said that in order to build an ideal world society for the future, we need to focus upon the standard and quality of teaching in the present times and for this, teachers must realize their immense responsibility today. She suggested positive and significant changes in the present system of education in India and focused on the importance of making education more systematic, useful and effective globally. The above information was given by the Chief Public Relations Officer of CMS, Mr Hari Om Sharma.

            Mr Sharma said that this International Conference held at Columbia University, USA, saw the participation of renowned educationists, economists, thinkers and policy makers who deeply discussed economic policies, reforms in education and their effects etc.  Some of the prominent participants included the IMF Executive Director, Mr Krishnamurthy Subramaniam, former Ambassadors of USA in India, Mr Kenneth Juster and Mr Frank Wisner, Professor at Columbia University Prof. Arvind Panagariya, Consul General of the Indian Government in USA, Mr Randhir Jaiswal and other esteemed personalities.