The Teacher of the Year prize awarded in Almaty

The Teacher of the Year prize has been awarded in Almaty for the seventh time, Tengrinews.kz reports, citing Liter.kz. A man-teacher has become the winner of the main prize for the second time in the history of the contest. Rinat Ibragimov, young physical science teacher working in school-lyceum №165, has been selected the best teacher of the year. The total 70 Almaty teachers took part in the contest this year. The winner got a travel package to the UK besides other valuable prizes. Other finalists have been awarded with valuable prizes, money rewards and Ministry’s of Education and Science honorary awards as well. Moreover the city’s teachers have been getting an additional bonus to their salary from September 1, 2011. The size of the salary depends on teacher’s level of qualification. 231 million tenge ($1.6 million) have been allocated from Almaty city mudget for this purpose. “My pupils, administration of the lyceum and my colleagues inspired me to take part in the contest. Their support has made me believe that I would be able to overcome all these challenges. It was not me grading the works in this contest, the jury judged me. "In my teaching my goal is to get my pupils interested in physics. It is a complicated exact science. But there is still space in it to make learning fun: for examples one could dance in the class when demonstrating connection between molecules,” Rinat Ibragimov said.