Ranjitsinh Disale is a name that's going in the history books for what he achieved as an educator, but his act of generosity is instilling hope into humanity. At a time when the world is battling the worst health crisis, schools and colleges have been shut for safety reasons. But nothing is likely to stop Disale, the 31-year-old teacher at the zilla parishad school in Solapur's Paritewadi, who has won the prestigious $1 million Global Teacher Prize for innovation in teaching.
Disale was among 12,000 educators from 140 countries who were nominated for the prize. The award is given by Varkey Foundation and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) and the winners were announced by actor-writer Stephen Fry on Thursday in an online ceremony from London's Natural History Museum.
Disale's contributions won him $1mn prize
Varkey Foundation, which has been hosting the prize since 2014, said Disale transformed the life chances of girls at the zilla parishad primary school. The prize was set up to recognise the contributions of one teacher who made extraordinary contributions to the profession.
Disale used technology to his advantage and used it in an exemplary manner. Disale integrated use of technology in education in 2009, but had very few students at the time. There was a high rate of dropouts due to child marriages, child labour and poor learning outcomes. But that didn't stop him in his pursuit to bring about a change.
As he came up with new learning methods beyond textbooks and started with just one laptop. One day, he came up with the idea to create QR codes and pasted them on existing textbooks. Using mobile phones, these QR codes could be scanned to show additional resources on the topic.
His novel idea was widely recognised and the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks were embedded with QR codes to help students in 2018.
Disale's plans for $1 million prize money
Disale is India's first educator to have won the prestigious prize and has truly upheld the integrity of India on a global platform. Disale said that he would donate half of his prize money to other finalists so children across the globe would get quality education.
"In his winning speech, Mr Disale made the extraordinary announcement that he will share half the prize money with his fellow Top 10 finalists, resulting in the other nine finalists receiving just 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 the other finalists," the official statement by the foundation read.
Disale has been working on a special project sine 2017, where he is nurturing friendship between students in India and Pakistan through online video sessions. He also wants to ensure that at least 5,000 students from war-hit countries are recruited into a Peace Army.
"I would like to use the prize money for my project and to support innovation of teachers," he said.
