Maltina Teacher of the Year to emerge Oct 5

The stage is set for the Maltina Teacher of the Year Award, in which the overall winner and state winners will go home with over N50 million, when the winners are announced during this year’s World Teachers’ Day billed for October 5. The maiden edition of the award instituted and flagged off in May 20 by the Nigerian Breweries (NB) Plc, under the Maltina brand is expected to make a millionaire out of Nigerian teachers. Addressing journalists in Lagos at the weekend, the NB Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability Manager, Mrs. Emete Tonukari, said the award was instituted to change the concept that teachers’ reward is in heaven, as well as people would begin to see teaching as a respectable and noble profession. “Many people go into teaching today as an alternative, who are ready to quit whenever they have good jobs.

This means they do not like the profession, but they are in the job to make the ends meet,” she said, insisting that this must change as this is what the company is set to achieve by the award and recognition. According to her, part of the objectives of the award, is to make teaching more inspirational in order to attract others to the teaching fold. “The award, which is not a promotional or sales outlet, is purely to recognize those who are already teaching and doing the job well,” Tonukari stressed, adding that it was a selfless corporate social responsibility initiative of the Nigerian Breweries to reward and promote excellence in the profession.

The manager, who noted that though many entries had already been received and many more are still trickling in, added that because of popular demand the deadline of the entries which had earlier been fixed for June ending had to be extended to accommodate more entries and many teachers are still showing interest in the award. Towards this end, she noted that entries would not close in July, while the winners will be decorated during the World Teachers’ day on October 5. The winner will receive N1 million cash, a fully paid overseas training as well as N1 million yearly for the next five years; while the school will get a N25 million project to be executed by the company.

The first runner-up gets N1 million; the second runner-up will receive N750,000, while the state winners in each state of the federation and the Federal Territory will get N500,000 each. “The project is a CRS project for teachers to make the teaching profession inspirational. It is not a one-off thing or a sales promotion stunt. It is a pure citizenship project to give back to the society,” she said. Tonukari, who assured Nigerians that the process of selecting the best teachers at the state and national levels would be transparent, however, explained by a crack team of experienced and credible panel had been raised to do proper justice to the exercise.