Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged National Teachers Awards winners to connect classroom learning with real-world skills during a September 4, 2026 meeting. The PMO's September 5 account says he also stressed children's curiosity and respect for different forms of work.
The discussion involved awardees drawn from school education, higher and technical education, and skill training. Its practical-learning theme has a specific policy background: the Education Ministry's 2024 guidance on ten bagless days for classes 6-8.
That guidance describes opportunities to learn with local experts such as carpenters, gardeners, potters and artists. It also includes visits to cultural and historical places and other institutions, with activities shaped by states, communities and local skill needs.
The educational distinction is between hearing about an occupation and observing how its knowledge is used. Craft and garden activities can make material choices, measurement and planning visible, while treating practitioners as people from whom pupils can learn rather than simply subjects in a textbook.
The bagless-days approach gives the dignity-of-labour theme a practical setting: skilled people in the local community become part of a child's learning environment. It connects respect for work with the experience of seeing how work is done.
