Olasunkanmi Opeifa: English Teacher and Maltina Teacher of the Year

Recognised by Nkuzify as Leading Teacher and Educator of the Year.

World Teachers' Day
Happy Teachers' Day from all of us at Nkuzify.

In a classroom in Karu, on the edge of Abuja, an English teacher raps to explain how words sound. He links essay writing to popular dance steps.

It is teaching built to be remembered. The teacher is Olasunkanmi Opeifa, and he has wanted to teach since he was a small boy.

A boy who taught his classmates

After reading his Social Studies textbook in primary school, he used to teach its topics to his classmates. He admired the respect a female teacher he knew received, and that strengthened his wish to become a teacher.

The only English teacher in the village

After studying at Lagos State University, where he volunteered at a free tutorial centre for underprivileged students, he served his national youth service in Koma, Adamawa State. There he was the only English teacher in a village school of over 200 students, and he helped build the school's first library.

Hip-hop, dance steps and flipped classrooms

At Government Day Secondary School, Karu, he uses edutainment, the flipped classroom model for essay writing, and online tools for assessment. In 2014 he published a book on oral English teaching to reach students beyond his own community, and he runs free weekend tutorials so the syllabus gets covered.

The prize that built classrooms

In 2018 he was named Maltina Teacher of the Year, the best teacher in Nigeria. The prize came with a promise to his school: a block of six furnished classrooms, a library and toilets, which let the school take up to 300 new students a year. In 2020 he reached the top 10 of the Global Teacher Prize.

Standing beside him at that 2018 ceremony in Lagos, as first runner-up, was Olalekan Adeeko, another teacher you can read about on this blog.

Why Nkuzify celebrates him

Opeifa turned a prize into classrooms, and so showed that one teacher's recognition can reach a whole school. At Nkuzify we believe a teacher's best work is the work that outlives the lesson.

Read more in Nigeria's Education Heroes: Pioneers, Prizewinners and Unsung Teachers, or make a free Thank You card for your own teacher.