The World’s Best School Prizes, founded by T4 Education in collaboration with Accenture and American Express, are the world’s most prestigious education prizes.

Nigerian schools were today urged to apply for the $250,000 World’s Best School Prizes 2023 as applications opened. The World’s Best School Prizes, founded by T4 Education in collaboration with Accenture, American Express, Yayasan Hasanah, Templeton World Charity Foundation, and the Lemann Foundation, are the world’s most prestigious education prizes.

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.

Even before the pandemic, the UN warned the world was on course to miss its Sustainable Development Goal 4 of quality education for all by 2030. With over 1.5 billion learners impacted by school and university closures, that mountain has grown even steeper. The World’s Best School Prizes were founded as a grassroots solution to help build the systemic change needed. The Prizes give inspirational schools a global platform, allow them to share their best practices, and help others replicate their innovative ideas.

A Nigerian school excelled in the Prizes in their inaugural year: Best Intellectuals Model School was named in the Top 10 shortlist for the World’s Best School Prize for Overcoming Adversity 2022.

Vikas Pota, Founder of T4 Education and the World’s Best School Prizes, said:

“Every child left behind in the wake of the COVID pandemic is a child too many. Governments must take urgent action to tackle the global education crisis and ensure quality education is a right not a luxury. The best place to start is by working with schools at the coalface to understand what works.

“We founded the World’s Best School Prizes to create the conversations that lead to lasting change. Conversations between educators learning from one another’s vital solutions, and conversations in the halls and corridors of power where leaders must sit up and listen to those on the frontlines.

“I urge outstanding Nigerian schools to come forward and apply.”

There are five Prizes schools can apply for:

1) The World’s Best School Prize for Community Collaboration

2) The World’s Best School Prize for Environmental Action

3) The World’s Best School Prize for Innovation

4) The World’s Best School Prize for Overcoming Adversity

5) The World’s Best School Prize for Supporting Healthy Lives

A Top 10 shortlist for each Prize will be announced in June 2023, followed by the Top 3 finalists for each Prize in September. The winner of each Prize will be chosen based on rigorous criteria by a Judging Academy comprising distinguished leaders all across the globe including academics, educators, NGOs, social entrepreneurs, government, civil society, and the private sector.

The winners will be announced in October 2023. A prize of US$250,000 will be shared equally among the winners of the five Prizes, with each receiving an award of US$50,000.

The shortlisted schools across the five Prizes will share their best practices through virtual seminars and showcase their “secret sauce” through School Transformation Toolkits with step-by-step instructions on how others can replicate their innovative approaches to help improve education everywhere. These will be available on the new T4 Communities app.

The Prizes are open to all schools who teach students in compulsory schooling, and are legally registered with their respective Ministry of Education or government regulatory authority, including early childhood centres, kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, and online schools.