He’s the best teacher, and he has the best lesson to teach!
A schoolteacher from a small Zilla parishad of Maharashtra has been awarded the 2020 Global Teacher Prize. That’s amazing, but what’s more amazing is his gesture to share his prize money with runners up!
Ranjitsinh Disale, a teacher at Zilla Parishad Primary School, in the village of Paritewadi was chosen as winner from more than 12,000 nominations and applications, from over 140 countries around the world. The award recognized his efforts to promote girls’ education at the school, whose pupils are mostly from tribal communities.
Disale won $1 million (approximately Rs7,37,45,800) as prize money, and decided to share half the sum with the runners-up. Other nine people would get almost $55,000 from his prize money.
The pupils’ teacher
Disale learned the local language of the village in order to translate class textbooks into his pupils’ mother tongue. He also created unique QR codes on the textbooks to give students access to audio poems, video lectures, stories and assignments, greatly improving school attendance. His QR technology is now being rolled out more widely across India.
The kind-hearted teacher
He told the award committee, “I believe that if I share this prize money with nine teachers it means I can scale up their work. Their incredible work is still worthy… If I share the prize money with the rest of the teachers they will get a chance to continue their work… and we can reach out and lighten the lives of as many students as we can.” What a fantastic gesture this is!
The award, which is run by the Varkey Foundation in partnership with UNESCO, celebrates “exceptional” teachers who have made an outstanding contribution to their profession. The award’s nine runners-up are teachers working in the United States, Britain, Vietnam, Nigeria, South Africa, Italy, South Korea, Malaysia and Brazil.
Did you know?
Around 40% of adolescent girls aged 15-18 apparently have not seen a school in their lifetime. Girls from poorest families approximately 40% have never stepped inside the classroom and school surroundings. Teachers’ training is dismal as 17.5% of elementary and 14.8% of secondary teacher’s posts remain vacant. Only 70% of primary school teachers are adequately trained to teach students with their available skill sets.
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