Million Dollar Teacher
Sunday, September 5, 2021
Do you know who’s the World’s no.1 Teacher? And which world class school does he teach in? Let's meet him today. This is the story of Ranjitsinh Disale who teaches in a government school rural in Maharashtra and his innovation in education that is revolutionizing India. A few days ago UNESCO declared winners of Global Teachers Price 2020. The price Money was US $1 million which is Rs.7 crore and the winners of this award is from India, from one of our villages. The competition received 12,000 nominations from 140 countries and Ranjit Sir was declared a winner out of all of them and you will be surprised to hear his plans for US $1 million. The stories of real heroes don’t reach out to as many people. The Indian Education system is broken it’s true, we all know it but only few people want to do something to change the system only a few people want to make teaching as their career well Ranjit Sir actually wanted to be an Engineer he wanted to do something in the technology but his this dream remained a dream only. Then he decided to use his time trying to fulfill other’s dreams but whose dream could he really fulfill? Because the village schools were empty (no attendance). Paritewadi is a village between Pune and Solapur in Maharashtra there Ranjit Sir got a job in the Zilla Parishad Primary school. His work started in 2009 when he was exposed to India’s broken education system only 56% of Indian Government schools have electricity. The student to teacher ratio in India is so adverse that in a ranking of all countries, India is 36th from the bottom this does not bode well for a country with more than half of its population below the age of 25 years. The school was a decrepit room between a store room and a cow shed. How to get students to a school like this? This is a simple answer for this questions his phone. Children prefer entertainment over education. When entertainment and education come together it is obvious that students would come to school as well he started showing videos of poems internet children came to school not to learn but to have fun. They watched movies sang songs and played games and in between this enjoyment they also started learning and attendance shot up. The schools that was empty before started reporting 100% attendance. Girls from the village who would be married off at a young age started going to school. Ranjit Sir would conduct science experiments in a science lab and would show this to his students via video calls. Technology can be used to fill an infrastructure gap Ranjit Sir has learned this important lesson. He started teaching children QR codes for content that was relevant to the textbook chapters this method is getting adopted all over the country now. In, 2017 the Maha government started printing textbooks with QR codes to help students understand the textbook syllabus. Students can scan these QR codes and satisfy their curiosity and education becomes a game when you study like that. Ranjit Sir has been awarded several awards before this too. Not only this Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella has praised Ranjit Sir’s work in his book “Hit Refresh” and now this 1 millon prize What is Ranjit Sir going to do with this money? Will he buy a big house, a car, or a trip abroad? Actually after this prize was declared, immediately without delay, Ranjit Sir shared half the money with the other 9 finalists. He knew the other teachers and their students are deserving if funds will split among more people, the impact would increase I had always herd that teachers are selfless but today Ranjit Sir proved exactly how selfless they are. Ranjit Sir wants to start a teacher’s innovation fund to help teachers bring creative solutions to their students so that in the coming years, there is no just one Ranjit Sir but many level up students at their own levels. Teachers have a huge role-play in its success. How nice would it be right? If we encourage teachers to find out innovative solutions if we understand their problems and give them tools and training to overcome them. Teaching is a thankless job. In lockdown, we heard how much we have value our teachers that tell us how much teachers value their students. Today let’s thank those teachers who took creative steps to teach us. There must be one teacher like this in your life, right? We may not be regular touch with these teachers but their words forever touched us somewhere. I feel proud to say that one of the best teachers in the world doesn’t teach in a private school but he teaches in a government school because it is not quality schools teachers who write the ABCs of this country’s future. It takes a teacher like Ranjit Sir who builds dreams in a broken school.
A special salute to all the hard working teachers like Ranjit sir!
s