Bill Gates just gave a shout out to HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum in his video for The Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize. As we all know, teachers are the spine of child education, but are not always given the recognition they deserve, and Dubai is hosting an annual ceremony that aims to change that on March 18. The ceremony will host the most outstanding educators from around the globe and the worthy finalist a prize of $1 million.
Sheikh Mohammed has previously spoken about his passion for education, particularly when it comes to Arab youth learning within their own language. “Our Arabic language has always been one of learning and science; it will not fail to absorb and adapt to the sciences and discoveries of our day. It can go even further to create superior technical terms that better represent modern inventions and developments,” Sheikh Mohammed wrote in an open letter last year.
The wait is over!
A special announcement from @BillGates revealing our Top 10 #TeacherPrize Finalists! https://t.co/8NIeiXtijY @gatesfoundation pic.twitter.com/hzcPvZdcgi
— Global Teacher Prize (@TeacherPrize) February 14, 2018
“For his patronage of the prize, thank you to the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, HH Sheikh Mohammed,” the Microsoft co-founder said.
For this year’s Varkey prize, the 10 successful candidates were picked from among more than 30,000 applications, with the finalists coming from Turkey, the Philippines, Colombia, the UK, the USA, Australia, Norway, Brazil, Belgium and South Africa.