A Kenyan teacher in a remote village has won the Global Teacher Prize for 2019 and a prize of $1m.
Peter Tabichi, 36-year-old teaches math and physics in a secondary school in Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School in Pwani village, in a remote, semi-arid part of Kenya’s Rift Valley.
According to organizers, Tabich gives away 80 percent of his monthly income to the poo.
He received the prize at a ceremony on Saturday in Dubai hosted by Hollywood star Hugh Jackman.
“Every day in Africa we turn a new page and a new chapter… This prize does not recognize me but recognizes this great continent’s young people. I am only here because of what my students have achieved,” Tabichi said.
“This prize gives them a chance. It tells the world that they can do anything,” he added.
Tabichi defeated nine finalists from around the world to claim the award.
In a statement, the Dubai-based Varkey Foundation, which organizes the event and said Tabichi’s dedication “has led his poorly-resource school in remote rural Kenya to emerge victorious after taking on the country’s best schools in national science competitions”.
Around 95 percent of the school’s pupils “hail from poor families, almost a third are orphans or have only one parent, and many go without food at home,” the statement added.
“Drug abuse, teenage pregnancies, dropping out early from school, young marriages and suicide are common.”
They also said some students have to walk seven kilometres (four miles) along roads that are impassable especially during the rainy season.
According to the foundation, the school with a student-teacher ratio of 58 to 1, has only one desktop computer for the pupils and poor internet, but despite that Tabichi “uses ICT in 80 percent of his lessons to engage students.”