A teacher at Sevenoaks School in UK, and chair of EduSpots, a UK and Ghanaian registered NGO, Cat Davison has been included in the top 50 shortlists for the world’s best teacher award.

The Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize 2021, in partnership with UNESCO, which is now in its seventh year, was set up to recognize exceptional teachers across the globe who have made an outstanding contribution to the profession as well as to shine a spotlight on the important role teachers play in society.

Cat, is one of two UK-based teachers selected from over 8,000 nominations from 121 countries around the world for the US$1 million Global Teacher Prize which is the largest prize of its kind.

The Varkey Foundation said Ms. Davison is a critical thinking teacher from Kent, who has created innovative curricula that apply ethics to action, such as ‘Society and Change’, which introduces students to critical perspectives on charitable and environmental action, alongside social entrepreneurship and advocacy projects.

These curricula prompted a surge of 120 student-led projects including; Students Unite, which raised over £35,000 for MSF, which offers a personalised carbon footprint calculator, and Women Empower, which leads collaborative workshops.

She has also worked with teachers and students in Ghana and the UK to create EduSpots, a network of 42 community-led solar-powered libraries, whilst also engaging students in global citizenship education. Today, these centres enable 15,000 people to access educational resources, with 200 volunteers creating solutions to local challenges.

The project as part of its country-wide literacy festival recently distributed over 28,000 books across 40 communities in some 15 regions in Ghana.

Ms Davison in an interview with JoyNews‘ Anass Sabit stated that she was humbled and motivated to be selected alongside inspiring educators around the world.

“When I heard about it, I was excited and also incredibly humbled to be shortlisted alongside many inspiring educators in all corners of the world. I also just feel enormously grateful to all the students, community members, and teachers that I worked with across the last 10 years as a teacher”. She said

She further noted that, “I’ve learned so much from them and I’m proud of all the work we’ve done together, but particularly proud of EduSpots and its work in Ghana, addressing education and inequality at some scale and we’ve built a volunteering network that is really driving change in 42 communities in Ghana.

Ms Davison again acknowledged that her work in the local Ghanaian communities has over the years, been her source of motivation in her line of work.

“In these communities, I work in every single day, the people inspire and motivate me to do what I do in the classrooms, in the communities, and for EduSpots.”

The top 50 shortlists will be narrowed down to 10 finalists in both categories in October with the overall winners due to be announced at an awards ceremony in Paris in November, 2021.