BHU Felicitates Professor Ashutosh Mohan After National Teachers' Award

VARANASI: Banaras Hindu University's Institute of Management Studies felicitated Professor Ashutosh Mohan on Tuesday after President Droupadi Murmu conferred on him the National Teachers' Award 2026.

Senior teachers, faculty members, research scholars, students and alumni attended the campus programme. Colleagues praised Mohan's academic work and congratulated him, while the professor thanked the faculty and students with whom he said the achievement was shared. The gathering included academics from across the institute, reflecting the award's significance within the BHU community.

A national teaching award is personal recognition, but a university should use the occasion to examine the practices behind it. The most valuable follow-up is not another bouquet; it is a record of methods that other teachers can test. How are difficult ideas explained? How is feedback returned? What changes when a class includes students with different levels of prior preparation?

Management education faces a particular challenge. Case studies and market language can become detached from the economy students actually see around them. In Varanasi, teaching can draw on family businesses, tourism, public services, weaving networks, logistics and the fast-changing urban economy. Local examples do not make a course less global; they give students evidence they can observe and question.

The presence of research scholars and alumni at the felicitation points to teaching beyond a scheduled lecture. Mentoring dissertations, helping students frame a research problem and staying available when a career plan shifts are forms of academic labour that rarely appear in a timetable. Awards can make that work visible if institutions explain the citation and selection criteria clearly.

BHU could extend the moment by asking Mohan to lead an open workshop on course design or assessment. A short, accessible note on his teaching approach would allow departments outside management studies to adapt relevant ideas. Students should also have a role, since their experience can identify what makes a method effective in practice.

Recognition should not create a single model that every teacher must copy. Different subjects require different classrooms, and innovation can be quiet: a clearer rubric, a better question, a tutorial for students falling behind. The goal is to build a culture where good teaching is discussed with the same seriousness as publications and grants.

Tuesday's ceremony celebrated an individual achievement. Its wider opportunity lies in what BHU does next. If the award prompts colleagues to exchange methods and students to expect thoughtful teaching, the honour will have an afterlife longer than the formal photograph.