Nigeria’s vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has commended Nigerian Breweries Plc for instituting Maltina Teacher-of-the-Year (MTOY) Awards, saying the initiative is yielding tremendous results.
He gave the commendation through the Minister of State for Education, Mr Chukwuemeka Uwajiuba, who represented him at the grand finale of this year’s edition of the award, held in Lagos, recently.
According to him, identifying and celebrating exceptional teachers in the country is a laudable scheme as the impact of the annual awards had truly shown in the performance of both the teachers and the students of secondary schools nationwide and also on the education sector generally.
He said the Federal Government would continue to support the initiative even as he urged all the teachers to also be more committed to duties.
MTOY award is an initiative of the Nigerian Breweries Plc domiciled under its humanitarian arm – Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund, to identify and showcase committed and hardworking secondary school teachers nationwide and consequently lift the education sector and the economy as a whole.
A teacher from the James Hope Royal College, Agbor, Delta State, Mr Taye Abanika, won this year’s edition, which was the seventh in the series.
Mr Isaac Pave from Taraba State and Margaret Ofordun from the Federal Capital Territory won the second and third phase of the award, respectively.
With the development, Abanike who teaches Design technology became the second teacher from Delta State to win the award as Mr Felix Ariguzo who was then teaching at Master Care International School, Asaba won the 2017 edition.
Abanike just like the previous winners, was rewarded with a gold trophy, a certificate of excellence and N6.5 million money prize out of which N1.5 million was to be paid first for being a national and state champion and the remaining five million is meant to be spread equally across the next five years, if he remains a teacher.
He would also attend all-expenses-paid capacity development programme abroad while his school would be provided with a block of six classrooms, or any other facilities as preferred for producing him.
Speaking earlier, the managing director of Nigerian Breweries, Mr Hans Essaadi, noted that an independent panel of judges headed by a renowned political economist, Professor Pat Utomi assed all the entries, 1, 085 in all, received this year from which the best three emerged.
He said the import of teachers became more pronounced during the general lockdown last year due to COVID -19 when all schools were shut and students were at homes but still learning remotely.
He emphasised that the award initiative was to recognise hard work and diligence among teachers and celebrate them so as to boost their morale and their colleagues for improved performance and by extension, education development of the country.
He promised that the company would continue to add value to the teaching profession, the education sector and the economy as a whole.
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