Global Teacher Prize Ukraine to honour wartime teachers for the second time and donate UAH 4 million for educational dreams
3 October 2023, Kyiv - The Global Teacher Prize Ukraine 2023 has gathered more than five hundred stories of teachers from all over Ukraine.
The Global Teacher Prize Ukraine, which has been recognising teachers as agents of educational change since 2017, is collecting teachers' stories for the second time this year to document their experience and contribution to the protection and development of education during the war. Ukrainians will see some of these stories on 7 October at 21:00 on the air of the United News telethon.
3 October 2023, Kyiv - The Global Teacher Prize Ukraine 2023 has collected more than five hundred stories of teachers from all over Ukraine. The main goal of the prize during a full-scale war is to tell the stories of teachers in order to thank them and celebrate the importance of their work. On 7 October, the award organiser, the Osvitoria NGO, will present stories that embody Ukrainian wartime teachers at the ceremony:
Teachers who continue to protect Ukrainian education despite the war, occupation and torture;
Teachers who are open to experiments and invent new formats for teaching in schools;
A new generation of teachers who are inspired and full of ideas about what the school of the future should look like;
Educators who teach children in bomb shelters, during anxiety, in hospitals;
Educators who take care of the youngest Ukrainians in kindergartens.
In addition, this year, teachers submitted ideas for initiatives to restore education in the de-occupied territories. The ceremony will honour four authors of the best ideas, and each of the teachers will receive UAH 1 million to implement their project.
"The history of a new Ukraine is being created now, and it will have new heroes: military, doctors, volunteers, diplomats, artists, entrepreneurs... And our mission is to make sure that this pantheon includes teachers: those who taught in bomb shelters, nurtured our culture and language under occupation, exposed to mortal danger, comforted children far from home, gave children a sense of normal life during the war. Those who are nurturing our future every day. We are creating the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine so that none of these stories will be forgotten," says Zoya Lytvyn, head of the Osvitoria NGO and founder of the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine.
For the second time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the organiser of the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine, Osvitoria, is collecting stories of teachers to record the memorable steps they have taken to preserve education.
Primary school teacher Valeriia Hukova was recognised as a teacher changemaker at the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine 2022: "The Prize introduced me to many interested and motivated professionals, whom I learn from and with whom I can share my experience. It also, to some extent, broke down stereotypes among young colleagues and parents that a professional teacher should be exclusively of a respectable age, with decades of experience behind him or her, even something far from children".
The Global Teacher Prize Ukraine is an annual national award for teachers-agents of educational change, which has been held in Ukraine since 2017. The prize aims to recognise the achievements of teachers not only in relation to their students, but also to society, and to highlight the importance of teachers in Ukraine.
Vasyl Dyakiv, a history and civics teacher and winner of the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine 2020, shared his thoughts on participating in the prize: "Integration into the global pedagogical community is a requirement of our time, and the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine is a step towards self-improvement and understanding the vectors of the educational space. Everyone who has applied for it at least once has already become a winner over the grey routine and stereotypes, conservatism of the educational system."
The Global Teacher Prize Ukraine 2023 will be broadcast on 7 October at 21:00 on the United News telethon.
The permanent curator of the prize is Natalia Moseychuk, a presenter of 1+1 Ukraine TV channel and a teacher by training. Information support for the award is provided by the platforms of the 1+1 media group - UNIAN and TSN news sites, the morning show "Breakfast with 1+1", as well as the film and television platform Kyivstar TV. The United News telethon can be viewed on 1+1, ICTV, Pershyi, Inter, Rada TV channels, as well as on their YouTube channels and in the Diia app.
