The Global Teacher Prize is the largest prize of its kind and is referred to as the Nobel Prize for teaching. This award is given to an outstanding teacher who is making great strides in his teaching profession and is helping transform the lives of his students in his community and beyond. The winner gets to take home 1million us dollars. The award which is in its 5th year was set up by the Varkey foundation to help improve the status of teachers and to broadcast the important role teachers play in the society.
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10 finalists were selected from over 10,000 nominations and applications from over 179 countries around the world. Out of the over 10,000 nominations, the numbers is cut down to a 50 and then a 10.
A prize committee and the global teacher price academy, makes sure the final 10 and the winner meets criteria that includes. Achieving demonstrable student learning outcomes in the classroom, teacher recognition from governments, national teaching organizations, head teachers, colleagues, members of the wider community and pupils, employing effective instructional practices that are replicable and scalable to influence the quality of education globally and helping children become global citizens through providing them with a values based education that equips them for a world where they will potentially live, work and socialize with people from many different nationalities, cultures and religions.
The global teacher prize 2019 was awarded to Peter Tabichi from Kenya. Peter makes Kenyans proud and all of Africa proud for being the worlds best teacher and the first African to take the award since its inception 5 years ago. Peter Tabichi is a science teacher from Kenya who gives away 80% of his monthly income to assist the poor and through his dedication and hard work, his poorly resourced school in a remote rural part of Kenya comes out victorious in the country’s national science competitions.
The Varkey Foundation believes every child deserves a vibrant, stimulating learning environment that awakens and supports their full potential. They believe nothing is more important to achieving this than the passion and quality of teachers. They founded the Global Teacher Prize to shine a spotlight on the incredible work teachers do all over the world and continue to play a leading role in influencing education debates on the status of teachers around the world.
BY AUDREY ESSAMUAH.
