The Association “Živojin Mišić” has selected the winners of the national competition, who are going to battle for the title of the best teacher in the world.
The project “The National Teacher Prize” is part of the project “The Global Teacher Prize” which has been organized by the Varkey Foundation for the fifth year in a row.
The Association “Živojin Mišić” has been a partner of the Varkey Foundation for three years, which means that the project “The Best Educators of Serbia” became even then a pre-qualifying competition for the National Teacher Prize.
We are immensely proud of having the honour of choosing, on behalf of Serbia, as national partners of the Varkey Foundation, prominent teachers who will represent us in the world.
What the team of the Varkey Foundation believes is that each child in the world deserves a good teacher. For this reason, they build the network of the best teachers in the world, together with their partners, because they believe that we will provide equal education for all in this way. One of the founders of the Varkey Foundation, Sunny Varkey, is guided by the idea that only education can solve the biggest problems which today’s world has, because everything starts with education.
The Association “Živojin Mišić” wants to award, commend and encourage once again through this project prominent teachers in Serbia and to provide them with the possibility of entering one of the world’s biggest competitions in the sphere of education, the Global Teacher Prize.
This year, three representatives from Serbia have been chosen for this world competition and they have fulfilled the following criteria for further placings, prescribed by the Global Teacher Prize. These are the use of effective teaching practices influencing the quality of education on a global level, the use of innovative teaching programme inspired by the methods solving new challenges in the future, personal achievements, impact on the community, developing students as citizens of the world, recognition of their work by the community.
After examining candidates’ applications and additional materials, and taking into account the criteria of the Varkey Foundation, the commission decided to the candidates for the "Global Teacher Prize" are:
- Borko Petrović, English language teacher at Primary School “Stevan Jakovljević” in Paraćin,
- Ivana Kovačević, Serbian language and literature teacher at Primary School “Dr Dragan Hercog” in Belgrade and
- Zoran Ilić, primary school teacher at Primary School “Svetozar Marković” in Leskovac.
This year's committee consisted of:
- Branislav Ranđelović, acting director of the Institute for Evaluation of the Quality of Education and Upbringing
- Dragica Pavlović Babić, coordinator of PISA research in Serbia and associate of the Institute of Psychology in the field of education
- Ivana Cenerić, research coordinator at the Center for Education Policy
- Srđan Verbić, former Minister of Education
- Vigor Majić, director of the Petnica research station
- Zoran Stanojević, the editor and journalist at Serbian Broadcasting Corporation
- Association "Živojin Mišić"
Once again we would like to thank the nominated candidates and wish them good luck in the continuation of the competition.