Quality of teachers and teaching needs to improve: CNR Rao

Eminent scientist and Bharat Ratna CNR Rao today said ability of teachers in the country and quality of their teaching should improve.
"The problem with many of our teachers....They are not good enough to teach our children;...Most teachers themselves don't know enough at times and they are teachingour 11th class and 12th class children, for example," he said.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an eventto announce '8th Bangalore India Nano' here, Rao said, "Quality of teaching has to improve, ability of our teachers has to improve."
Noting that previous government had agreed thatthe next ten years should be called as decade of teachers andteaching, Rao said "...Present government I don't know whatthey are going to do, we have to see whether they will agreeto do that or not."

India Nano 2016 will be held from March 3 to 5 here, with the theme 'Nano Horizons'.
Stating that the country continued to make reasonable efforts in the area of Nano Sciences, Rao said "It is only area of science where India has a ranking; it is actually number three in the world in number of publications...."

He said there is no other area of science India hasmade this great.
"US, China and India; Japan come after that, Japan,Britain, France, Germany all come after," he added.
The Nano event will be addressing the latest trends in Nanotechnology focusing on health care, clean water, energy and manufacturing, organisers said.

Rao, who is Chairman of Vision Group on Nanotechnology,said that one place where Nano has achieved beyond expectations is in providing very pure drinking water.
Speaking about providing clean drinking water in arsenic infested area of West Bengal and Bangaladesh, he said there was uranium content in water in parts of Punjab. Noting that scope of startups in Nanotechnology was "tremendous", Rao said "all one needs to do is pick up an area what they want like nano medicine, nanotechnology- electronic devices, sensor technology. In India not much is coming up,but abroad lots of industries are coming up."
On Bangalore Nano Institute (Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences), Rao said it had now taken shape and Directorhad been appointed.

He said recruiting of staff members is also on and "I think in the next Bengalore Nano we will have full-fledged institute.