The laureates of the Worlds’ Best School Awards for 2023 were publicly revealed on Saturday, November 4. In the spotlight were five categories, and the winners hailed from diverse parts of the world, including South Africa, India, Brazil, Israel, and Colombia.
“The five World’s Best School Prizes – for Community Collaboration, Environmental Action, Innovation, Overcoming Adversity, and Supporting Healthy Lives – celebrate schools everywhere for the pivotal role they play in developing the next generation of learners and for their enormous contribution to society’s progress, especially in the wake of COVID. The Prizes were established to share the best practices of schools that are transforming the lives of their students and making a real difference to their communities,” T4 Education said.
Each of the five laureates was carefully selected by an impartial panel of experts from the Judging Academy, who adhered to rigorous criteria as prescribed by T4 Education. In recognition of their remarkable educational accomplishments, these schools will be sharing a total prize of USD250,000, with each school receiving USD50,000.
The Riverside School, an independent international school situated in Ahmedabad, India, was honored with the Worlds’ Best School Prize for Innovation 2023. This institution has gained global recognition for its groundbreaking, student-centric approach to education, thanks to its I CAN pedagogical model, as acclaimed by T4 Education.
The Worlds’ Best School Prize for Overcoming Adversity 2023 was given to the Max Rayne Hand in Hand Jerusalem School. The school “is helping to heal longstanding divisions in dark times as the only bilingual, integrated Jewish-Arab primary-secondary school in Israel,” T4 Education said.
SPARK Soweto, an independent, partially government-funded kindergarten and primary school in Johannesburg, South Africa, was honoured as the Worlds’ Best School Prize for Community Collaboration. The school is praised for being a catalyst for change for its disadvantaged community that was once symbolic of the struggle against Apartheid.
The Worlds’ Best School Prize for Supporting Healthy Lives 2023 was secured by EEMTI Joaquim Bastos Gonçalves, a government secondary school situated in Carnaubal, Ceará, Brazil. The institution has played a vital role in providing support to students navigating the complexities of reintegrating into society following the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Worlds’ Best School Prize for Environmental Action 2023 was presented to Institución Educativa Municipal Montessori sede San Francisco, a government primary and secondary school located in Pitalito, Colombia. This school has taken on the substantial environmental challenge posed by coffee production and effectively converted waste into eco-friendly products.
In addition to these awards, a new Community Choice Award was introduced this year, presented to Escola Municipal Professor Edson Pisani in Brazil, which garnered the most votes from the public in a Public Vote among all the finalists of the World’s Best School Prizes.
Applications for the World’s Best School Prizes 2024 are now open. These prizes are available to all schools that provide compulsory education, are duly registered with their respective Ministry of Education or government regulatory authority, including kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, and online institutions. The application deadline is February 24, 2023. For additional information, please visit https://t4.education.