Maharashtra Teacher Wins $1 Million Global Prize - He Transformed A Rundown School To Be The Best In District

A teacher from Maharashtra is the winner of this year's Global Teacher Prize for his work in girl's education. After winning the prize, he decided to share it with other participants.

Courtesy: Global Teacher Prize

New Delhi: An Indian teacher,  has won this year's $1 million Global Teacher Prize for his work in helping young girls especially from poor tribal communities in the village school in Maharashtra. Ranjitsinh Disale was selected from over 12,000 nominations and applications from over 140 countries around the world.  His initiative in educating the girls not only transformed their lives but also turned a dilapidated school tucked away in a remote corner into the 'Best School for the district in 2016'. Helping students with QR coded textbooks According to an official statement, Disale first wanted to be an engineer, but when that did not work out did teacher training instead. In 2009 he started teaching in the school which was then in a rundown condition. He also faced social problems such as a lack of interest in girl's education and teenage marriage. He also understood that one of the main reasons that students performed poorly was that the curriculum was not in the students’ primary language Kannada. He then put efforts in first learning the language and then redesigned all the textbooks of grades 1-4. To improve learning he embedded QR codes in the new textbooks for audio poems, video lectures, stories, and assignments in Kannada to improve learning. His efforts helped the school become the best school in the district in 2016, and 98 percent of students achieved their expected learning outcomes. Disale's work has been praised by many and The CEO of Microsoft (Satya Nadella) has even featured him in his book 'Hit Refresh'. He was also announced as the 2016 Innovative Researcher of the Year by the Indian government. After winning the $1 million prize he immediately announced he would share the $1 million prize money something which happened for the first time in the six-year history of the prize. Due to his decision, the nine other finalists received about $55,000 each.