The Sunday News
Charity Chikara, Sunday News Reporter
A top Bulawayo girls school, Eveline High has been shortlisted in the top 10 World’s Best Schools for Innovation for its contribution towards societal development in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A prize of US$250 000 will be equally shared among the winners of the five categories, with each receiving US$50 000.
The categories are; community collaboration, environmental action, innovation, overcoming adversity and supporting healthy lives.
In a statement, the organisers of the global competition, T4 Education said Eveline High has been named in the Top 10 shortlist for the World’s Best School Prize for Innovation.
United Nations
“With over 1,5 billion learners impacted by school and university closures, Covid-19 has greatly exacerbated a global education crisis in which, even before the pandemic, the UN (United Nations) warned progress was already too slow to achieve universal quality education by 2030.
Schools can share their best practices and have their voices heard at the top table to help transform education.
“I want to congratulate Eveline High School for making the Top 10 shortlists for the inaugural World’s Best School Prizes.
Educators all over the world will now be able to learn from the example of this outstanding Zimbabwean school,” said Mr Vikas Pota, Founder of T4 Education and the World’s Best School Prize.
In an interview, Eveline High Junior Achievement Club chairperson and teacher, Mr Jobert Ngwenya said the club works under the JA Africa towards empowering learners with the 21st century skills, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship using experiential learning.
“The short listing came as a result of various challenge based learning innovative projects we have been carrying out as a school.
These include the ilifalethu.co.zw an online digital depository for history and heritage information, a teen digital magazine and most recently the organic Nutri-bar, among other projects.
“These innovations in the curriculum implementation are the ones that earned us the nomination,” he said.
Mr Ngwenya said winning the prize would be helpful in improving the school’s material and human resources to meet the global demands of the global trends in education at the end of it all benefiting the learners.
World’s Best School Prizes
With the short listing the top three finalists for each of the five World’s Best School Prizes will be announced later this year.
“After a public advisory vote, 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 2022 at World Education Week.
“A prize of US$250 000 will be equally shared among the winners of the five Prizes, with each receiving an award of US$50 000,” reads the statement from T4 Education.
All 50 shortlisted schools across the five prizes will share their best practices through toolkits that showcase their secrets to innovative approaches and step-by-step instructions on how others can replicate their methods to help improve education everywhere.
