New Delhi: The abominable state of education in the country - especially in rural areas - may be ascertained from how a teacher in Jharkhand has been teaching alphabets to his students. Young children in a government school in the state's Kuti village memorise alphabets with the help of not just unusual but often derogatory sentences including one that calls Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as a PM of chors (thieves).

At a very impressionable age, the children are taught alphabets using sentences which are mostly demeaning in nature. A Zee News video (watch above) shows the teacher going through his lessons by calling Brahmins burbak (foolish) and says C is for chor (thief), and that Nehru was a PM of chors. The innocent students merely repeat their teacher's sentences in their open-air school which appears devoid of a proper blackboard, tables, chairs and notebooks.

When Zee News contacted officials of the education department in the area, they claimed they were unaware of such lessons being given. On being further questioned about the sorry state of primary education, they assured of an investigation into the incident, while terming the Kuti school's incident as a one-off. In the past however, similar reports have emerged from elsewhere in Jharkhand and several other states like UP and Bihar as well. School teachers are often found lacking basic knowledge of their subjects. Many are even guilty of imparting lessons which are factually incorrect. Rampant cheating during examinations, say education experts, also leads to the next generation of teachers being largely unqualified to pass on any knowledge.