Two Fellows of Teach For Nigeria (TFN), teaching in underserved communities for a two-year period have won the Most Outstanding Lockdown Teacher Competition.
A 2018 TFN alumnus, Gideon Ogungeyimi, and a 2019 Fellow, Precious Adegunle, emerged winners in the contest organised by Educational Aid Global Initiative (Edu-Aid) of the Covenant Christian Centre.
Ogungeyimi won N500,000, while Precious got N300,000 from the competition organised to commend teachers for their selflessness and innovative efforts in helping children learn while schools were shut.
The teachers were required to submit a one-minute video talking about their work. These submissions were independently evaluated to determine the winners.
Ogungeyimi, who won the N500,000, created and printed worksheets in English and Mathematics and delivered to his pupils’homes. He also launched ‘Project Feed100’ with two other Fellows to provide financial palliatives to 100 needy families.
On her part, Precious fundraised to purchase tablets for her pupils and started a project to digitise the Nigerian curriculum in indigenous languages, particularly Yoruba.
She preinstalled the educational content and games, movies, books and worksheets in the tablets. Then, she distributed to her pupils for free.
The CEO, Teach For Nigeria, Folawe Omikunle, said the winners demonstrated the leadership qualities that TFN imbibes in its fellows.
“We are tremendously proud to see not only the winner of this contest emerge from Teach For Nigeria, but also the 1st runner up. This is evident of the leadership quality that exists in our teacher leaders.
“The pandemic widened the gap of inequity. And as leaders who understand the challenges in underserved schools, our teacher leaders did not only identify the challenges, but they also displayed a great sense of responsibility and urgency to ensure that learning didn’t stop despite the school closure.
“We are inspired to see the possibilities of the future of education beyond the classrooms within low-income communities,” she stated.
