Evans Odei is vying for the $1 million price at the global event
• Ghana is making a showing at the Global Teacher Prize 2021
• Evans Odei hopes to bring the US$1 million prize home
• Ghana’s last best showing was in 2018
A teacher with the Achimota School in Accra is vying for a US$1 million prize at the Global Teacher Prize 2021, after he made it to the top 10 list of finalists.
Evans Odei therefore becomes the first Ghanaian to have made it to the 10 finalists, following in the footsteps of the late Professor Sitsophe Anku who, in 2018, made it to the 50th finalist of the Prize, reports the Ghanaian Times newspaper.
The teacher was selected from over 8,000 nominations and applications from 121 countries around the world.
Organised annually by the Varkey Foundation, the Global Teacher Prize is a way of recognizing hard working teachers for going the extra mile to make teaching and learning more interesting and to help with the understanding of students to the things they are taught in school.
With over 20 years’ experience in the teaching field, Evans Odei explained his motivation for making the teaching of mathematics a core business of his.
“So, I decided to set up a free ‘Mathematics Clinic’ to engage students who had a phobia of learning the subject and also to make learning easier for them. My target was the average and below average students who needed extra help to make a difference,” he said.
With this, he told the paper, his students begun to exhibit changes in the perceptions they have towards the subject.
This, he added, led to the reduction in truancy and in the improvement in the results the students begun to produce.
He also expressed optimism of bring the prize home to Ghana so as to do more for his students.
The winner of the Global Teacher Prize 2021 will be announced on November 10 via a virtual ceremony at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris.
