Ranjitsinh Disale is an Indian teacher from

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

. He is the winner of $1 million annual

Global Teacher Prize The Global Teacher Prize is an annual US$1 million award by the Varkey Foundation to a teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession.Brain, Rondinelli"Now There's A Davos Of Education And A $1 Million 'Nobel Prize' For Teacher ...

2020 which was announced on 3 December 2020. The

, which has been referred to by journalists as the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

for teaching, highlights and celebrates the profession while giving greater recognition to the work of teachers all over the world. Disale said in his winning speech that he would share with his nine fellow finalists half of the prize money, meaning they would receive $55,000 each. He also works with the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

Advisor An adviser or advisor is normally a person with more and deeper knowledge in a specific area and usually also includes persons with cross-functional and multidisciplinary expertise. An adviser's role is that of a mentor or guide and differs categor ...

for their educational programs. He was selected by the

US Government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...

to join

Fulbright Program The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

Early life and education

Disale hails from Paritewadi Village in the

Solapur Solapur () is a city located in the south-western region of the Indian state of Maharashtra, close to its border with Karnataka. Solapur is located on major highway, rail routes between Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad, with a branch line ...

District of

. At the beginning, he decided to be an IT engineer and had enrolled in an engineering college. But when things didn't fit for him, his father convinced him to take up the teacher's training programme. While Disale was initially reluctant about the decision, his time at the college of teacher training made him realize that the real change-makers in the world are the teachers.

Career

Disale is well known for his innovative teaching works, including demonstrating scientific experiments from the science lab built by him and adding

QR code A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about th ...

s to primary category books so that his students can get links to audio poems, video lectures, assignments and stories. His idea of incorporating QR codes into textbooks was adopted by

National Council of Educational Research and Training The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India which was established in 1961 as a literary, scientific and charitable Society under the Societies Registration Act. Its head ...

. In his village, he also campaigned to eliminate adolescent marriages and encourage the education of girls. He submitted his resignation letter in July 2022 to join

in USA. The

Education Ministry An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

approved

study leave Study or studies may refer to: General * Education **Higher education * Clinical trial * Experiment * Observational study * Research * Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning Other * Study (art), a drawing or series of drawin ...

and allowed him to participate in the program without resignation. Maharashtra Chief Minister

Eknath Shinde Eknath Sambhaji Shinde (pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, knaːt̪ʰ ʃin̪d̪e born 9 February 1964) is an Indian politician and president of Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena, Shivsena serving as the 20th and Current List of chief ministers of Maha ...

and Deputy Minister

Devendra Fadnavis Devendra Gangadharrao Fadnavis (Marathi pronunciation: ��ेवेंद्र फडणवीस born 22 July 1970) is an Indian politician serving as the 9th and current Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra since 30 June 2022. He served as ...

assured him that Maharashtra government will support him.

Awards

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Disale, Ranjitsinh Living people Indian schoolteachers Educators from Maharashtra Recipients of the Global Teacher Prize 1988 births Marathi people