CHENNAI: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-Madras) honoured six outstanding school teachers with the ‘First Principles Teachers Award 2026’ on Monday for helping lay strong conceptual foundations among pre-university students in physics, chemistry and mathematics.

The six awardees are Sanjay Kumar (Physics, Pune), Asheshanand Acharya (Physics, Bengaluru), Kapil Birthare (Chemistry, Indore), C Chitti Babu (Chemistry, Tirupati), Samudrala Vijaya Kumar (Mathematics, Tirupati) and Nishant Sharma (Mathematics, Kota).

The second edition of the awards instituted by IIT Madras was presented by V Kamakoti, Director of IIT-Madras, at the institute’s campus. A statement issued by the institute said the award recognises educators who help students develop ‘first principles’ in these subjects, in an approach that encourages analytical thinking.

Kamakoti said school teachers play an influential role in shaping a student’s career by promoting the right way of thinking and learning. He added that recognising such contributions would inspire more teachers and strengthen school education in line with the vision of the National Education Policy 2020.

Prathap Haridoss, Dean (academic courses) at IIT-Madras, noted that students with a strong grounding in foundational concepts tend to perform better during their time at IIT and in future.