Katarina Veljković, one of the Best Educators of Serbia entered the Top 50 best teachers in the world.
This year as well, the nonprofit, nongovernmental Association Živojin Mišić has selected the representatives for the competition Global Teacher Prize which is believed to be at the level of the Nobel Prize. Katarina Veljković, teacher of informatics and computer science in the First Grammar School of Kragujevac, has entered the 50 best teachers of the world, and thereby Serbia was placed high on the ladder in the sphere of education as well
The Global Teacher Prize Competition has existed for five years in a row and aims at finding the best teachers in the world and showing that their profession is one of the most important in every country.
The former winners of this competition come from the United States, Palestine, Canada and the United Kingdom, and now even Serbia has the opportunity to be the first!
Katarina Veljković, who has been working as a teacher for 14 years, has always tried to find and remove the flaws of educational system and to give students the true anwer to the question: “Why am I learning this, what purpose does it serve me?” Numerous projects which she has carried out with children during her career and the catchphrase which guided her through life “Imagination is more important than knowledge” have contributed to her success in teaching over 1400 students. Nowadays she can say with merit that she is one of the best teachers of the world too
Besides this, Katarina holds the title of one of the Best Educators of Serbia, which was awarded by the Association Živojin Mišić two years ago within the same project. The Association also brought the Global Teacher Prize to Serbia. As a national partner of the Varkey Foundation which organizes this competition, the Association Živojin Mišić has been selecting the best out of the best for the second year in a row. Željana Radojičić Lukić, general education teacher from Mionica and the Best Educator of Serbia in 2014, was among the Top 50 best teachers of the world last year. Today, for the second year in a row, Serbia has its representative among the best and this is Katarina. For a small country on the world stage, this is huge success and an indicator that Serbian education is valuable and that we have great people who educate our children! Even 179 countries all over the world took part in the competition!
We would like to congratulate our national representatives for this year one more time: Tatjana Marković Topalović, physics teacher from Šabac and Dragan Kuveljić, general education teacher from Prijepolje. All three of them are excellent educators who have been representing our country and defending the colours of education with dignity for many years. It is an honour to have them in our team! More information about this year’s competition can be read here.
Katarina’s biography can also be found on the official website of the Global Teacher Prize competition here.