Adeola Adefemi, a Lagos public school teacher, has emerged as the overall winner of the 2023 Maltina Teacher of the Year Award.
She was announced winner of the award on October 20, 2023 at the grand-finale of the competition and award ceremony held in Lekki, Lagos.
By this development, Adefemi, an English language teacher at Keke Senior High School, Agege, under the state’s Education District 1, will be the first teacher from Lagos State to win the Maltina Teacher of the Year Award since inception of the competition nine years ago.
Last year, Adefemi first won the Best Teacher Prize in Lagos State and was celebrated and rewarded by the Lagos state government with an SUV car. Later same year, she won again, the Presidential Best Teacher Prize in Nigeria and was given another SUV by the Federal Government.
Adeola Adefemi, who is also a 2020 Fulbright Teaching Excellence award winner, defeated all other 1,498 teachers, who submitted entries nationwide for the 2023 Maltina Teacher of the Year award.
Mr. Azuh Chike Emmanuel of Ezemu Girls Grammar School, Delta State and Adam Abdulqadir Nda of Model Science College, Niger State, won the second and third prize positions.
Adeola Adefemi will receive a total cash prize of ₦6.5 million (₦1.5 million immediately and ₦1 million every year for the next five years if she remains as a teacher), a gold trophy and also entitled to all expenses-paid short course studies overseas and a block of classrooms or laboratory worth ₦20 million for her school, the first and second runners-up will get ₦1.5 million and ₦1.25 million respectively for their efforts.
The Maltina Teacher of the Year award is an annual competition being organised and sponsored by Nigerian Breweries Plc under its social corporate arm, NB-Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund, for teachers in both public and private secondary schools across the country. And the competition which is free and voluntary to all teachers and had produced eight past winners so far, is to identity, celebrate and reward exceptional teachers in Nigeria.
The Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries, Mr. Hans Essaadi, represented by the Corporate Affairs Director of the company, Mrs. Sade Morgan, commended the panel of judges led by Professor Patrick Utomi, a political-economist cum politician, that screened and assessed the work of all the contestants before picking the best among them, for their service and dedication to the initiative.
Mr. Essaadi also appreciated the vital role played by long standing partners, particularly the Federal Ministry of Education, Lagos State Government, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Nigeria Union of Teachers as well as the 2023 co-sponsors-Air Peace and Stanbic IBTC.
He noted that the competition, which had produced eight past winners, has really brought great revolution into teaching profession in the country and that Nigerian Breweries Plc would not relent in its social intervention efforts towards quality education in the country.
