Ranjitsinh Disale, a Government School Teacher from Paritewadi, Maharashtra, had made history and made India proud. This is not because he won the 1 million USD Global Teacher Prize 2020 which brings incredible honour and glory in itself, but because in a never-before-seen instance, he decided to share half of his Rs 7.4 crore winnings with the rest of the nine finalists for the Global Teacher Prize to support their work.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed education and the communities it serves in a multitude of ways. But in this hard time, teachers are giving their best to make sure every student has access to their birth right of a good education," said Disale, as per PTI.
Disale aspired to become an IT engineer but it didn’t turn out to be the way he wanted to that’s when his father suggested him teaching as a career. However, his experience in a teacher training college changed him as a person completely. He started off with his incredible work in Zila Parishad Primary School in Paritewadi village, the building was ramshackle and sandwiched between a cattle shed and a storeroom. Disale, turned the whole scene around and translated the textbooks into the local language to help children study in their mother tongue.
Disale is well-known for his teaching work, also he includes QR codes to primary class books so that the children can get links to audio poems, video lectures, assignments and stories. Disale became the first to introduce QR codes in his school’s textbooks. He did not stop here, he submitted a proposal and a successful pilot scheme. In 2017, the Maharashtra Government also decided to do the same across the state for textbooks of all classes. The next year, the HRD ministry announced that all NCERT books across India would have QR codes embedded in them.
He has also worked to spread awareness on the ills of teenage marriages and the importance of education for girls. Now, the village sees 100% attendance of girls at the school and no teenage marriage has been reported in long, says the PTI report. His work has made him a hero in his region. Apart from improving school education Ranjitsinh Disale is also passionate about building peace between young people across conflict zones. He connects young people from India and Pakistan, Palestine and Israel, Iraq and Iran, and the US and North Korea through a ‘Let’s Cross the Borders’ project.
Ranjitsinh Disale has made India proud and has made an extraordinary difference to hundreds of children.
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