Five inspirational Indian schools were on Thursday named in the top 10 shortlists across different categories for the inaugural USD 250,000 World’s Best School Prizes, launched in the United Kingdom to celebrate schools worldwide for their enormous contribution to society’s progress.

SVKM’s CNM School in Mumbai and SDMC Primary School Lajpat Nagar III in New Delhi have both been named in the top 10 shortlist for World’s Best School Prize for Innovation.

Kavita Sanghvi, the Principal of the school, says, “We applied for our in-house STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) subject. It is a skill-driven subject where every student participates. Each unit runs for nearly two months, and all the learning is driven by the students who research, create hypotheses, experiment, conclude and present.” 

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.

The World’s Best School Prize for Overcoming Adversity includes Samaritan Mission School (High) in Howrah, West Bengal 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 World’s Best School Prizes are 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.

The three finalists for each of the five prizes Community Collaboration, Environmental Action, Innovation, Overcoming Adversity, and Supporting Healthy Lives will be announced later this year. After a public advisory vote, the winner in each category will be chosen by the Judging Academy comprising distinguished leaders from around the world.

The winners of the World’s Best School Prizes 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, with each receiving an award of USD 50,000.

Under the format, all 50 shortlisted schools across the five prizes will share their best practices through toolkits that showcase their innovative approaches and step-by-step instructions on how others can replicate their methods to help improve education everywhere.

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