-Dipta Joshi

Primary school teacher and the Global Teacher Prize 2020 winner, Ranjitsinh Disale has been named the World Bank’s education advisor for the period June 2021 to June 2024. He will also be associated with the World Bank’s ‘Coach’ project which aims to accelerate student learning by improving in-service teacher professional development (TPD).

Speaking to EducationWorld about his role as an advisor, Disale said, “My role entails designing the overall framework but I will be in direct contact with teachers and other stakeholders as and when required.” As part of his new role, Disale has chalked out plans to make schools safer even in conflict areas by marking them as special green-cross spaces that are not to be attacked. He proposes approaching the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to run a campaign making people and organisations aware of the new initiative.

The World Bank’s newly launched ‘Coach’ project is integrated with the international financial institution’s larger efforts to help countries enhance their teacher policies and programmes. Addressing the absence of well-trained teachers in schools, ‘Coach’ encompasses support to countries to improve their teacher professional development through various strategies. Coaching sessions include one-to-one coaching, group training and workshops etc. either through in-person, remote or hybrid modalities all of which leads to better teacher-student interactions “which is the key to improving student learning outcomes,” adds Disale .

“There will be a shift from traditional, ineffective in-service TPD systems to ones that use insights from fields of adult learning and behavioural science. This will help align the TPD programmes to the four evidence-based principles (tailored, focussed, practical and on-going TPD) that have shown to lead to improved teaching practices,” says Ranjitsinh Disale who is enthusiastic about the positive impact of the programme.  

Ranjitsinh Disale who has been teaching at the Paritewadi village primary school in Maharashtra’s Solapur district since 2009 won global acclaim for his efforts to promote girl’s education in a poor tribal community where girls were dissuaded from studying and married off while still young. Disale’ personalised programmes using digital learning tools not only led to 100 percent school attendance but his innovative use of QR-coded textbook learning has revolutionised teaching across India.

Bestowed the Global Teacher award in December 2020, Ranjitsinh Disale won hearts for sharing fifty percent of the $ 1million Global Teacher Prize 2020 prize money with nine of his fellow finalists in a bid to support their work.  In May, 2021 he joined the judging panel to select the winner for the foundation’s $50,000 sister award – The Global Student Prize.

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