Olasunkanmi Opeifa, a 32-year-old teacher from Government Day Secondary School, Karu, Abuja has emerged as the best 2018 Maltina Teacher of the Year.
Olasunkanmi Opeifa emerged winner among other secondary school teachers in both the public and private secondary schools across the 36 states of the federation.
Olalekan Adeeko, a Computer studies teacher at Baptist Boys High School, Abeokuta, Ogun State and Samuel Popoola, a Physics teacher with Deeper Life High School, Akure, Ondo State, emerged the second and third position, respectively of the annual award.
The Maltina Teacher of the Year is an initiative of the Nigerian Breweries Plc on the platform of Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund – a social arm of the company designed to identify, showcase and reward teachers who are outstanding among their peers nationwide. It is an annual event with this year’s edition fourth in the series.
For Opeifa’s effort, he received a plaque, certificate and ₦1 million plus an additional ₦500,000 he received as a state champion from Abuja, and he will also get another ₦1 million every year for the next five years while a block of six classrooms would be built by the company for his school for producing him.
His first and second runners-up colleagues also got ₦1 million and ₦750, 000 respectively for their efforts, plus another ₦500,000 as champion from their states while every other state champion went home with ₦500,000, bringing the total cash prize of the award to ₦22.25 million in all.
Olasunkanmi Opeifa, an English language teacher commended Nigerian Breweries for the initiative and enjoined other corporate organisations to follow the example as a way of boosting teaching profession and education in the country.
He maintained that teaching is not about earning a living, but about having a strong passion for humanity and emotional stability to impart knowledge regardless of the challenges.
In his address at the event, the Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries Plc., Mr. Jordi Borrut Bel, explained that over the years, the Education Trust Fund has impacted over 25,000 students with over 400 classrooms, 30 libraries and laboratories built in over 40 communities across Nigeria.
