A Maharashtra government school teacher, Ranjitsinh Disale, won the Global Teacher Prize 2020 on December 3, 2020. He is best known for embedding Quick Response (QR) codes in textbooks which was adopted by National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). He has made history not because of winning the award, but because of his decision to share half of his ₹ 7.4 crore winning money with the rest of the nine finalists for this prize in order to support the ‘incredible work’ of the ‘change-makers’. The other nine finalists in the competition were from Nigeria, the UK, Italy, South Africa, the US, South Korea, Malaysia, and Brazil.
Disale translated the textbooks into the local language to help children study in their mother tongue. He added QR codes to primary class books so that the children could get links to audio poems, video lectures, assignments, and stories. After adding QR codes to the textbooks, he submitted a proposal and a successful pilot scheme to the Maharashtra government. Consequently, the government also decided to do the same across the state for textbooks of all classes in 2017. In 2018, the human resource development (HRD) ministry (now ministry of education) announced that all NCERT books across India would have QR codes embedded in them. Disale also worked to spread awareness on the ills of teenage marriages and the importance of education for girls. As a result, his village now sees 100 per cent attendance of girls at the school. Moreover, no teenage marriage has been reported for a long period.
He also works for establishing and maintaining peace between young people throughout the world by connecting young people from India and Pakistan, Palestine and Israel, Iraq and Iran, and the US and North Korea through a project known as ‘Let’s Cross the Borders’.
Disale has also built a science lab at his home and is well-known for demonstrating scientific experiments. He takes students with depleted resources from schools around the world on virtual field trips on his weekends, using the Microsoft Educator community platform.
He has previously bagged the Innovative Researcher of the Year 2016 award and the National Innovation Foundation’s Innovator of the Year 2018 award. His work has also been mentioned in Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s book Hit Refresh.
The Global Teacher Prize, set up in 2014 by Varkey Foundation, is an award carrying US$ 1 million. It is presented annually to an exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession. The prize money is paid in equal instalments over 10 years. Further, the foundation also provides financial counselling and support to the winners through an ambassadorial role for the profession. The prize acknowledges the impacts of the very best teachers—not only on their students but on the communities around them.