A tribute to teachers on the web

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Most colleges decorate the walls of the principal’s room and staff rooms with framed photographs of retired teachers as a  token of their reminiscence. Sadly, these portraits will be cob-webbed in the minds of students and colleagues. But entering the web portal www.gurusmarana.ihrd.ac.in, one will get a totally different picture. The details of your favourite teacher are just a mouse click away.This open access archive for the teachers of higher education in Kerala will not only present the portrait of the teacher, but his/her lecture notes and others publications too. It was a remark by the then Education Minster M A Baby which inspired Achuthsankar S Nair, director of the Centre for Bioinformatics, University of Kerala, to create the website. “When the Minister came to the Department of Journalism in Kariavattom to unveil a portrait of Professor Maxwell Fernandez, the first head of the departments of journalism in universities of Kerala and Calicut, he wanted to know the details of the professor. But no one, even his students, had much idea about him. This made me think of a website which gives almost all the information about retired teachers,” Achuthsankar recalls. As the son of an eminent professor, Achuthsankar decided to set up a profile about his own father U S Nair. But his ignorance of his father’s professional life shocked him. “My father helped me a lot in compiling the profiles of the eminent professors and lecturers. My father could identify most of the photographs of retired teachers collected from the University. He also helped me in collecting lecture notes and other publications,” he says.The website also contains eminent teachers’ profile, lecture notes and audio-video excerpts. Interested students can log on to the site to watch the video of Prof S Guptan Nair’s speeches. The profile of Carnatic vocalist professor C K Revamma has excerpts of her performances too. Media reports on her have also been added to her profile.P Sundaram Pillai, who wrote the state anthem of Tamil Nadu, named ‘Thai Vazhth’; Dr Alexander Crichton Mitchell, who designed the physics laboratory building of the University College; L Muthaiah Bhagavathar, who was one of the first teachers of Sree Swathi Thirunal College of Music, Thiruvananthapuram and C P Ramaswamy Iyer, who was the first Vice-Chancellor of the Madras Presidency, are some of the eminent personalities listed on the website. The website was constructed with the help of the IHRD. It invites co-operation of interested persons to enrich its contents. Those who have lecture notes and other valuable information of retired teachers can contact the website team on  [email protected]. Achuth Sankar has submitted a proposal to the government to give information about the teachers who retire from service every year.