The Global Teacher Prize 2023 is open for applications and nominations up to 28th May, 2023. This award is instituted by Varkey Foundation and is presented to a teacher for his/her exceptional and outstanding contribution to their profession. The winner of the prize will receive US $1 million. Th foundation has been accepting applications since 23rd March, 2023. Applications and nominations can be submitted online at the Global Teacher Prize 2023 official website.
The Global Teacher Prize serves to underline the importance of educators and the fact that, throughout the world, their efforts deserve to be recognised and celebrated. It seeks to acknowledge the impacts of the very best teachers – not only on their students but on the communities around them.
The Prize is open to teachers in every kind of school and subject to local laws, in every country in the world. Working teachers who teach children that are in compulsory schooling, or are between the ages of five and eighteen are eligible for participation. Teachers who teach children age 4+ in an Early Years government-recognised curriculum are also eligible, as are teachers who teach on a part-time basis, and teachers of online courses. Teachers must spend at least 10 hours per week teaching children face-to-face, and plan to remain in the teaching profession for the next 5 years.
In 2013, the Varkey Foundation commissioned Populus, the leading research and strategy consultancy, to gather in-depth opinions from 21 countries to explore attitudes about the teaching profession; teachers’ salaries; students’ attitudes towards educators and how participants rated their own education systems.
The results, published as the Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Status Index, formed the first comprehensive attempt to compare the status of teachers across the world. In many countries, it was clear that the profession’s status had dropped and the findings shocked Sunny Varkey, the Varkey Foundation’s Chairman, whose parents had both been teachers. He founded the Global Teacher Prize as a response with the aim of raising the profession’s profile.
Candidates for the Global Teacher Prize will be judged on a rigorous set of criteria to identify an exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession. The winner will be chosen by the prominent Global Teacher Prize Academy made up of head-teachers, educational experts, commentators, journalists, public officials, tech entrepreneurs, company directors and scientists from around the world. The Academy will look for evidence of a combination of:
- Employing effective instructional practices that are replicable and scalable to influence the quality of education globally.
- Employing innovative instructional practices that address the particular challenges of the school, community or country and which have shown sufficient evidence to suggest they could be effective in addressing such challenges in a new way.
- Achieving demonstrable student learning outcomes in the classroom.
- Impact in the community beyond the classroom that provide unique and distinguished models of excellence for the teaching profession and others.
- Helping children become global citizens through providing them with a values-based education that equips them for a world where they will potentially live, work and socialise with people from many different nationalities, cultures and religions.
- Improving the teaching profession through helping to raise the bar of teaching, sharing best practice, and helping colleagues overcome any challenges they face in their school.
- Teacher recognition from governments, national teaching organisations, head-teachers, colleagues, members of the wider community or pupils.
In the prize’s inaugural year, in 2014, the foundation received 5,000 entries from 127 countries. For the 2021 edition of the prize, the Varkey Foundation received 8,000 applications and nominations. The Prize has inspired over 40 National Teacher Prizes to recognise and celebrate teachers at country level.
