Teacher who won $1 million prize shares half of it with the runners-up

Indian schoolteacher Ranjitsinh Disale provided a lesson in kindness last week, when he received the 2020 Global Teacher Prize and promised to split half of his $1 million award with the runners-up.

Disale is a teacher at Zilla Parishad Primary School, in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. He has worked to expand education for girls from tribal communities, and in order to improve attendance at his school, he learned the local language and translated textbooks, CNN reports. He also created QR codes so students could access recorded lectures, audio files, and assignments, technology that is now being used across India.

More than 12,000 nominations were submitted for the prize, which is presented by the Varkey Foundation in partnership with UNESCO. There were nine runners-up, and on Thursday Disale said he would split half of his winnings with them, giving each one about $55,000. "If I share the prize money with the rest of the teachers they will get a chance to continue their work," he declared, "and we can reach out and lighten the lives of as many students as we can." Catherine Garcia

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up