• Tabichi says his passion to help others was not moved by the 7km he had to travel to and from school everyday.
• He says he has dedicated 70 percent of his monthly salary to help the students and community around.
Image: COURTESY
"I am not that special. There are so many teachers out there doing greater things than I do."
These are the words of Peter Tabichi who won the prestigious Global Teachers Prize in Dubai.
Tabichi, a Mathematics and Physics teacher at Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School in Nakuru county, beat nine other contestants to take home the grand prize of $1 million (Sh100,000,000).
He made history by becoming the first African man to win the prestigious prize.
In an interview with KTN News yesterday when he arrived from Dubai, Tabichi said it is his service in a hardship area that drove him to seek lasting solutions to help his students.
“When you serve in a hardship area you are placed in a corner to seek solutions. I was not expecting this because I am not that special after all,” he said.
Tabichi added, “This win is not just about me but to the many teachers who are doing tremendous work to ensure their students are in a better place in the society.”
He appealed to teachers to focus on students’ needs and mould them into innovators to better their skills.
“Let them have passion and love what they do. It should not just be about the salary but what the students need to fit in the modern society,” he said.
He said he has dedicated 70 per cent of his monthly salary to help the students and community around.
“At our school we just have eight classrooms. Students are forced to read under trees. We do not have a library and the teacher-student ratio is very low. That is why it is a shock that I would emerge the winner out of the thousands of teachers who had been nominated,” he said.
Tabichi said the selection panel had looked at how he had managed to help students in science innovation despite glaring challenges.
“We have the capacity to do great things but the only problem is that we lack confidence. Many students across the country hail from poor family set ups and if as teachers we can devise ways to help them overcome, then we make them better citizens,” Tabichi said.
He added, “When you help others you get tremendous rewards and the joy one receives satisfies the heart.”
Tabichi said despite having to ride a motorbike seven kilometers to and from school in a remote and dry area, his passion to help others be better has not waned.
He said he would use part of the money he has won to build a modern computer lab with internet connectivity for the school and focus on projects that will boost food security for the community.