Five inspirational Indian schools were featured in the top 10 shortlists across different categories for the inaugural US Dollar 250,000 World’s Best School Prizes. The Prizes, launched in the UK to celebrate schools worldwide for their enormous contribution to society’s progress, were announced on Thursday.
SVKM’s CNM School in Mumbai and SDMC Primary School Lajpat Nagar III in New Delhi are included in the top 10 shortlist for World’s Best School Prize for Innovation. Khoj School in Mumbai and PCMC English Medium School, Bopkhel, in Pune are among the top 10 schools shortlisted for the prize in the Community Collaboration category.
Maharashtra school education minister Varsha Gaikwad took to Twitter and said, “Glad to know that of the five shortlisted Indian schools for the Worlds Best School Prizes, 3 are from Maharashtra. Wishing all the shortlisted schools the very best.”
The World’s Best School Prize for Overcoming Adversity featured Samaritan Mission School (High) in Howrah on its shortlist. “With over 1.5 billion learners impacted by the school and university closures, COVID has greatly exacerbated a global education crisis in which, even before the pandemic, the UN warned progress was already too slow to achieve universal quality education by 2030,” said Vikas Pota, Founder of T4 Education and the World’s Best School Prizes.
“We have launched the World’s Best School Prizes as a grassroots solution to help build the systemic change needed. By telling the stories of inspirational schools that are transforming the lives of their students and making a real difference to their communities, schools can share their best practices and have their voices heard at the top table to help transform education,” he said.
The the World’s Best School Prizes were founded by UK-headquartered digital media platform T4 Education in partnership with Accenture, American Express, Yayasan Hasanah, Templeton World Charity Foundation, and the Lemann Foundation. It will have three finalists for each of the five prizes: Community Collaboration, Environmental Action, Innovation, Overcoming Adversity, and Supporting Healthy Lives.
The World’s Best School Prizes winners will be announced in October this year at World Education Week, when a prize of USD 250,000 will be equally shared among the winners of the five prizes, each receiving an award of USD 50,000.
(With inputs from PTI)
