Friday, May 21, 2010

Teaching should be the highest paying job: Aamir Khan

Actor Aamir Khan, who has raised pertinent questions about the education system through his applauded films "Taare Zameen Par" and "3 Idiots", believes that teaching should be made the highest paying job in India to encourage the best brains to join the profession.

"By and large, people go for teaching who don't find jobs elsewhere. So if I don't find a job elsewhere I will get into teaching. Therefore the cream of minds from every field end up going into business or something else to achieve success in their lives. The reason is that our teaching jobs don't pay much.

"For me as a part of society, we give maximum value to the teachers, which mean the teaching jobs should be the highest paying. So after getting an education of higher level, a student should feel that his first choice should be to be a teacher because they will feel much more respected, will have a better pay scale, a better life," said Aamir at the 1st anniversary of Forbes India magazine here Thursday.

Aamir maintains that students should be encouraged to enjoy education and eventually grow as good human beings.

"I think we need to teach them to think for themselves, to explore. We need to allow them to challenge. So if a child gives an answer, which sounds incorrect to us, we must not put that child down, we must encourage him to think for himself and question us and encourage him to discover, search, enjoy and grow as a good human being," he said.

Asked what is that one idea that would change the world, he said: "For me education is the big idea. When I say education, I mean education for all. I also mean not just teaching one particular subject to the children but rather allowing them to bloom by recognizing the uniqueness of children. Reaching education to each child... know India is a vast country but that would be the big idea."

Aamir also said that that teaching profession should be given more value in Indian society to increase the quality of education.

"It's not just about giving education but giving quality education. And by quality I mean the quality of teaching we do, and I think for that it is up to us how much value as a society we give to teaching. If we give lot of value to teaching then the quality of teaching also improves," he said.

Latest News

Mangalore: Air India aircraft overshoots runway, 158 dead


MANGALORE: At least 158 have been killed after an Air India Express aircraft from Dubai, carrying 160 passengers and six crew members, overshot the runway and ploughed into the forest while landing at the Mangalore airport on Saturday morning.

Eight people have been rescued and rushed to local hospitals, an Air India official said. Rescue operation was hampered by the thick smoke that engulfed the plane, airport authorities said.

Referring to those on-board the aircraft, chief minister of Karnataka, B S Yediyurappa, said: "They're all not alive".

At least 160 passengers have died in the crash," V.S. Acharya, home minister of Karnataka, earlier told reporters. "At least five to six people have been taken to hospital, their condition is not known."

The crash occurred at 6:03am. The aircraft was on fire, an Air India spokesperson said. About 25 fire tenders and ambulances are on the spot, authorities said.

The incident happened near a valley 10 km from the airport, Karnataka home minister V S Acharya said.

The flight IX-812, operated by a Boeing 737-800, had 163 adult passengers, 4 infants and 6 crew members on board.

Aviation sources said the aircraft overshot the runway, hit the fence and went beyond the boundary wall of the airport.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash, although Mangalore deputy police commissioner R. Ramesh said the airport had been lashed by heavy rains which had hampered rescue efforts.

Television footage suggested the plane had partially broken up, with smoke billowing from the main fuselage, as rescue workers sought to douse the fire with foam and pulled bodies from the wreckage.

"The plane had broken into two. I jumped out of the plane after it crashed. I saw two other people also come out," Abdullah, a survivor from the plane, told local channel TV9 from hospital. "There was tyre-burst kind of noise. I tried to get out of the front but saw that there was a big fire. So I went back again and jumped out from there."

One television channel showed a fireman carrying in his arms what seemed to be the remains of a child.

Charred bodies and an engine lay in the forested terrain. "The flight had already landed. There was slight rain. The flight skidded off," eyewitness Mohiuddin Bava told a channel. "After that it caught fire. Villagers, everyone there, came to rescue. The plane wings are right in front of me now."

Aviation sources termed it an 'accident' instead of 'incident', they said. In aviation parlance an accident denotes causalities.

AI has opened helpline centre at Delhi Airport and the two numbers are 011-2565-6196 and 011-2560-3101. Mangalore Helpline number is 0824-2220422.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of those killed in Mangalore air crash and Rs 50,000 for the injured from the PM's National Relief Fund.

Meanwhile, civil aviation minister Praful Patel has rushed to the spot. Congress president Sonia Gandhi also expressed grief and sorrow over the tragic air accident in Mangalore. In a message, she wished speedy recovery to those injured.

DGCA Director-General S N A Zaidi said, "we have received only preliminary reports regarding the accident. But we are waiting for the details including the number of passengers."

India's worst aviation accident occurred in 1996 when two passenger planes collided in mid-air near New Delhi with the loss of all 349 on board both flights.