Kenyan Peter Tabichi won the "Nobel" of education

DUBAI United Arab Emirates.- His first plane trip, at the age of 36, brought him from Kenya to Dubai. He flew high. Higher than ever imagined by this professor of mathematics and physics and his Franciscan brother, who teaches at Keriko Mixed Day High School, in the village of Pwani, in a remote and semi-arid region of Kenya's Rift Valley, where The number of students per teacher is 58 to 1. Peter Tabichi could hardly thank his students, the school, his father, who never stopped applauding when he heard the voice of the actor Hugh Jackman, the presenter of the ceremony, the voice of his son.

Peter Tabichi has been consecrated as the best teacher in the world. He can not believe it. The Kenyan teacher today received the Global Teacher Prize 2019, awarded by the Varkey Foundation and compared with the "Nobel" prize for education. Tabichi will receive a million dollars.

Projects to invest money in your community are not lacking. "We only have one computer to share between the teachers, the secretariat and the students," he had confessed to La Nación a few hours ago, when he had completed his master clbad in the 39, one of the auditoriums of the Global Forum on Education and Skills (GESF). He also stated that he was honored to have been selected among the top 50 of the 10,000 candidates from 179 countries. He felt that he had exceeded all expectations when he had learned that he was ranked in the top ten. Along with Tabichi, the nine other teachers who competed with him, including the teacher at Temperley Technical School No. 5,
Martín Salvetti, the first Argentinian to have reached this final stage. Salvetti loudly applauded his colleague, representative of the African continent. Both teachers knew that none of their regions had been distinguished in previous editions of the Global Teacher Prize. Of course, everyone had the same opportunities. But they had a presentiment.

"I loved your story," Hugh Jackman told him during the pre-opening of the enigmatic envelope, at a ceremony with a great artistic show, where Jackman sang and danced on stage with his dancers . Something like what you expect to see in the Oscars.

The staging of this mega summit is impressive. Nearly 300 speakers, 40 education ministers, 200 media outlets, 7 past presidents and more than 2,200 attendees participated in the weekend at the Atlantis Hotel Convention Center, a huge piece of art installed on Palm Jumeirah, the only one of its kind. Artificial island – The biggest palm tree in the world: a qualifier that has become a cliché in Dubai, the most touristy and most ostentatious in the United Arab Emirates.

Peter Tabichi gives 80% of his monthly income to help the community. The majority of his students are poor. Many also orphans and some do not have a home. Food does not always reach the children's plates, so Tabichi has set up a kitchen in the school. Believe in your students and motivate them. One of the projects for which he was selected is the science club that he developed at the school, helping students design research projects, with such approval and enthusiasm. 60% of their students currently qualify for national competitions.

Last year, Peter prepared his students to participate in the science fair and organized engineering in his country. A group of students, led by their best student, Esther, presented a device for the blind and deaf to measure objects. The school won first prize at the national level in the category of public institutions. "Every day in Africa, we move from one page to another and a new chapter.Today is a new day.This award is not recognized to me, but to all the young people of this great continent, I only here for what my students have accomplished. " This prize gives them an opportunity, he tells the world that they can achieve what they want, "said the professor when he received the highest distinction, and he continued:" Young Africans will no longer be arrested by the low expectations that weigh them, Africa will produce scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, whose names will be famous one day all over the world, and girls will be an important part of it. this story".

Tabichi, along with four other colleagues, also gives individual clbades to underachievement mathematics and science students outside school hours and weekends. She says it is during these times of visiting students that she takes the time to get to know their families and become aware of the challenges they face.

The growth of enrollments at the Tabichi School was one of the achievements taken into account by the jury. It has doubled to 400 in three years and the number of cases of indiscipline has gone from 30 per week to only three. In 2017, only 16 of the 59 students entered higher education institutions, but last year, 26 students went to universities and higher education institutions.