Updated: December 4, 2020 9:35:58 am
Disale, who had dropped out of engineering studies, had taken the teacher training course on his father’s advice, to see if he liked it.
“I may have won the award, but I cannot change the world alone, a Ranjitsinh Disale cannot do it alone. And that’s why I decided to get more hands-on. ”As Disale, a 32-year-old Zilla Parishad elementary school teacher from the Paritewadi village of Solapur, put it when asked about the half a million dollars in prizes that has decided to share with the finalists of the contest that he won.
Disale, who was awarded the ‘World’s Most Exceptional Teacher’ in the 2020 Global Teacher Prize, won a prize money of $ 1 million, half of which he shared equally with each of the other nine teachers who made it to the top 10.
“It would be unfair to take it all alone … look at his work, it’s exceptional. I believe that teachers can bring real change and I want each of us to have the same opportunity to do so, ”he said.
The Global Teacher Prize is an annual award instituted by the Varkey Foundation. Awarded to a teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession. Launched in 2014, nominations are open to teachers around the world. This year, there were 12,000 nominations from around the world for the award.
After applying for the award, Disale went through a lengthy procedure and was selected in the top 100. Disale faced interviews, audits, and verifications by PWC and other third-party agencies. He said that several months have passed since the process began.
Disale, who attended the online awards ceremony from her ancestral home in Solapur, broke down in tears and hugged her parents and a month-old baby after the winner was announced.
Disale, who had dropped out of engineering studies, had taken the teacher training course on his father’s advice, to see if he liked it. He did and stayed to complete it, joining ZP primary school in the drought-prone village of Paritewadi about 11 years ago.
It was in this dilapidated school building, which has around 110 students and five Class I to IV teacher teaching students, that Disale began his project of promoting girls’ education and unleashing a response-coded textbook revolution. rapid (QR), which soon spread from district to state, and then across the country.
He began by translating textbooks into the students’ mother tongue. But his pioneering work was to incorporate these textbooks with unique QR codes, which students could scan and then get instant access to audio poems, video lectures, stories, and assignments. Learning became fun and interactive, and one of the results was winning the award for being the best school in the district, with 100 percent attendance.
In 2017, the Maharashtra government announced plans to introduce statewide QR code textbooks for all grades. In 2018, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development announced that all National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks will have built-in QR codes.
Disale, who makes Rs 32,000 a month, says his needs are few and the prize money would go towards establishing a Teacher Innovation Fund, which will help teachers like him fund ideas for children’s futures. “I want to give each teacher the opportunity to make a change,” he said.
This is not the first international recognition for Disale. He was previously recognized by Microsoft as the Microsoft Innovative Expert Educator, and he also won the Innovator of the Year Award from the National Innovation Foundation in 2018.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
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