Olasunkanmi Opeifa, a Nigerian high school teacher, at the FCT Secondary Education Board (SEB) Area 3, Abuja is currently listed amongst the top 50 names in the Global Teacher Prize 2020.
The Global Teacher Prize is a US$1 million award presented annually to an exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to their profession. The Global Teacher Prize serves to highlight the importance of educators and the fact that, throughout the world, their work deserves recognition and celebration. It acknowledges the significance of great teachers; not only on their students but on the communities around them.
Olasukanmi Opeifa decided to become a teacher at a very young age of eight and has never wavered in his choice. As a student at the Lagos State University, he volunteered to teach in a free tutorial centre that prepared underprivileged students for secondary school examinations and university entrance. After graduation, he served for a year in a remote part of the country, Koma, Adamawa, as the only English teacher in a village school of over 200 students. There, he helped build the school’s first ever library.
In 2012, Olasunkanmi Opeifa moved to Government Day Secondary School Karu, a school in a semi-rural area of Abuja serving children of low-income earners in the civil service, market traders and artisans. Students often could not afford textbooks or the heavily subsidized school fees.
Olasunkanmi Opeifa uses edutainment, fun-based learning, online videos and the Flip Classroom Model in his teaching. Additionally, he published a book on learning English in order to reach more students beyond his community and he introduced free weekend tutorials in order to cover the syllabus with them. With this approach, examination results have improved immensely, and many students have met the benchmark for admission into university.
As a result of winning the Maltina Teacher of the Year award, the school was able to build a block of six classrooms with a well-stocked library, combatting overpopulation in classrooms and vastly enlarging the school’s student capacity.
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A host of high-profile endorsers including: her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abduallah of Jordan, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair have been very supportive of the list that made up the shortlisted teachers in the Global Teacher Prize 2020.
The Global Teacher Prize is awarded by the Varkey Foundation under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai.
According to Olasunkanmi Opeifa, he will use the prize money for the following projects if he wins.
A scholarship scheme for the underprivileged
Building of libraries in selected rural communities
The creation of a fully digitised K-12 not-for-profit school in his own community.
We are not surprised by his desires, he has always been one to support others with his knowledge and skills often providing free tuition and assistance to the communities far and near him.
Olasunkanmi Opeifa through his dedicated commitment to teaching and youth development shows us that together we can make a change in the world by contributing our quota to the growth of the communities around us.
We are inspired by Olasunkanmi Opeifa and we wish him all the very best at the finale.
#GTP2020 #TeachersMatter