An Indian wins the Global Teacher Award for the first time, prize money worth Rs 7 crores
Shikha Chaurasia
Pune, December 6, 2020: Ranjitsinh Disale, a primary teacher at Solapur Zilla Parishad School in Maharashtra, has won the Global Teacher Award. He has received Rs 7 crores as prize money. This is the first time an Indian has received this prize. The Global Teacher Prize, awarded by UNESCO and the London-based Warke Foundation, was announced on 3 December.
The Warke Foundation, which has replaced the animal tie shed in the school, has been giving the Global Teacher Prize every year since 2014. This year more than 12 thousand teachers from 140 countries of the world were in the race and 10 finalists were selected from these. Ranjit was selected for the Global Teacher Prize for promoting Girls Education and for promoting the QR Code-based books campaign in India. Disale started teaching in 2009 at Paritewadi Zilla Parishad School. A shed was then built to keep the cattle there. Ranjit urged the administration and the locals to get the school repaired.
Disale said, “I was happy to get a job, but when I reached school, the condition of the school made me sad. The place seemed less like a school and more like an enclosure to tie goats.”
The challenge was to bring the children to the school
It was challenging to urge the people to send their children to school, but Ranjit also tried to convince the local people to send their daughters to school. He said that most of the people living in Muflisi used to send their children to work on the farm every day. The task of persuading them to come to school was not easy. We first exposed the parents, then went door-to-door to bring the children to school.
Ranjit further said, “Children coming to school should not be bored with syllabus and books, so they did not allow them to open their books for 6 months. We would show them songs, stories and cartoons with the help of mobiles and laptops.”
Along with this, they kept trying to increase their knowledge. The children slowly started coming to school. The children kept coming to school in full strength till the lockdown.
Shanti Sena formed for 8 troubled countries
Ranjit Singh has made a peace army by taking 5,000 students along with him in eight countries of the world. These eight countries are India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, America and North Korea. In an effort to establish peace in these countries, he started the ‘Let’s Cross the Border Project’.
Educating abroad in 300 schools across 87 countries, Disale works with international organizations like Microsoft, Google, British Council, Flipgrid, Pluckers, and currently has over 300 schools in 87 countries around the world through the ‘Virtual Field Trip Project’.
Disale has won 12 international and seven national awards in the last nine years. Apart from this, 12 educational patents are in his name. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has launched a special video known as ‘Hit Refresh’ praising Ranjit’s work.
