Maharashtra Teacher Wins 'Global Teacher Prize' for Educating Girls

A primary school teacher from India was on Thursday named the winner of the $1 million annual Global Teacher Prize 2020 in recognition of his efforts to promote girls' education and trigger a quick-response (QR) coded textbook revolution in India.

The Global Teacher Prize is an annual award instituted by the Varkey Foundation. It is awarded to a teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession.

Launched in 2014, nominations are open worldwide to teachers. This year, there were 12,000 nominations from across the world for the award.

Ranjitsinh Disale, a primary school teacher at a government school in the village of Paritewadi.

After applying for the award, Disale went through a long procedure and was selected to the top 100. Disale faced interviews, audit and verification by PWC and other third party agencies. He said it has been several months since the process started.

Disale has announced that he will voluntarily share half the prize money with the other nine finalists (they will get over US$55,000 each). 

This is the first time in the Global Teacher Prize’s six-year history that the overall winner has shared the prize money with other finalists.

The announcement was made by actor and writer Stephen Fry at a virtual ceremony broadcast from the Natural History Museum in London. A jubilant Disale heard the news at home in India, surrounded by his family.

He started teaching at the school in 2009, when it was in a rundown building next to a cattle shed, according to organisers. School attendance was low and teenage marriage common.

The curriculum was not even in the girls’ main language, Kannada. Disale moved to the village, learned the language and translated the class textbooks.