The World Innovation Summit
for Education (WISE) announces six groundbreaking projects from around the world
as Winners of the 2012 WISE Awards under the theme “Transforming
Education”.
Now in their fourth year, the WISE Awards identify,
showcase and promote innovative educational projects from all sectors and
regions of the world in order to inspire change in education. Winning projects,
which are selected for their concrete, positive impact upon society, receive
global visibility and a prize of $20,000 (U.S.).
Hailing from
Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chile, Denmark, India and the United States of America,
the winning initiatives were selected by a Jury of leading education experts
following a pre-selection of 24 WISE Awards finalists from 14 countries. Winning
projects, including the Satya Bharti School Program (India), were selected for
their tangible, positive impact upon society and their innovative approach to
solving important global problems.
“Since 2009, the WISE Awards have
recognized successful, transformative projects in education in order to generate
a pool of sound practices and to inspire their adoption and adaptation
elsewhere,” said H.E. Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, Ph.D., Chairman of WISE
and Chairman of the WISE Awards Jury. “When determining the best projects, we
look at what is being achieved as well as how it is done. The winning
initiatives were selected because they are successful, but also because of their
innovative approach. These are not ordinary education efforts.”
The
diverse projects offer unique solutions to today’s most important challenges,
from poverty to climate change. Solutions include unconventional business models
to assist low-income families with affordable education, as well as original
ways of bringing high-quality education to remote and destitute parts of the
world.
“As one of the most prestigious awards in education, our
organization is honored to be a 2012 WISE Awards Winner,” said Bharti Mittal
Rakesh, Co-Chairman of the Bharti Foundation, whose Satya Bharti School Program
has impacted more than 62,000 children in India. “WISE offers a truly
international platform for sharing best practices. Thanks to this honor, we will
have the opportunity to showcase our Satya Bharti School Program initiative to
the world and to engage and collaborate with international or local contexts
that could benefit from a similar model. The recognition that being a WISE
Awards winner brings will surely help open doors to international conversation
and collaboration.”
This year one of the WISE Awards is for a project
that, in addition to “Transforming Education”, has best provided innovative
financing of primary education. The winning project comes from Bangladesh, where
solar-powered floating schools ensure year-round primary education to students
in flood-prone areas, even during the height of the monsoon period.
This emphasis on primary education reflects the support of Qatar
Foundation Chairperson Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser for United Nations
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 2 on achieving universal primary education.
The WISE focus in 2012 on an innovative financing project is designed to
stimulate efforts worldwide to reach MDG 2.
Finalists and Winners
of the WISE Awards will participate in the annual WISE Summit taking place
November 13 - 15 at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar, under
the theme “Collaborating for Change”.
About the 2012 WISE
Awards Winning Education Initiatives:
Cristo Rey Network
Corporate Work Study Program, United States of America
Launched in 1996,
the Cristo Rey Network gives low-income students access to the high-quality
instruction and support they need to be college-ready by the end of high school.
Students work five days per month in an entry-level job in a white collar
company and the fee for their work is used to underwrite tuition costs. The
Corporate Work Study Program gives students knowledge and skills to succeed at
college and in the modern workplace, as well as hope of a secure and prosperous
future. In the 2011-12 school year, students earned $37 million towards their
education. The Cristo Rey Network consists of 25 college preparatory high
schools across the USA, serving 7,400 students, and it partners with 1,700
companies.
PSU Educarchile, Chile
PSU Educarchile,
created in 2006, is the first free, interactive, online college preparation
program in Chile. It prepares young people to take the obligatory University
Admission Test (PSU - Prueba de Selección Universitaria), combining the delivery
of essential content with a flexible and interactive digital platform.
Historically, preparation for the PSU test has been through face-to-face classes
in a physical, paid facility. Every year PSU Educarchile reaches 1,200,000
students – many of them from low-income backgrounds and in remote areas -
through websites and mobile phones. This has narrowed the socio-economic and
geographical opportunity gap, and decentralized and improved the quality of
Chilean education. The project is supported by national and regional
governments, and by the country’s main telephone companies and communications
media.
RoboBraille, Denmark
RoboBraille converts
textual educational materials into formats such as Braille, mp3 files,
structured audio books, e-books and visual Braille for the blind and partially
sighted, people with dyslexia or poor reading skills, and the illiterate. It is
an e-mail and web-based service that is available free of charge to
non-commercial users and without registration requirements. Alternative format
texts are time-consuming and costly to produce, and expensive to obtain for
people with special needs. Created in 2004, RoboBraille currently serves between
1,000 and 2,000 daily user requests all over the world in several European
languages and in Arabic.
Satya Bharti School Program,
India
The Satya Bharti School Program provides high-quality
“end-to-end” education, free of charge, to underprivileged children,
particularly girls, in rural India. It was launched by the Bharti Foundation in
2006 and partners with state governments to complement the nation's education
agenda. It has impacted more than 62,000 children, almost half of them girls, in
the last six years and currently reaches over 37,500 children in 750 host and
neighboring villages, the majority from minority
communities.
Solar-Powered Floating Schools, Bangladesh (WISE Awards
Winner for innovative financing of primary education)
The
non-profit organization Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha introduced solar-powered
floating schools to ensure children’s education even during the height of the
monsoon. The boats collect students from riverside villages, dock at a final
destination and provide on-board small-group instruction. After class, the boats
take students back to their homes and then go on to pick up other groups. Each
boat school has a classroom for 30 students, an Internet-linked laptop, a
library and electronic resources, and provides basic primary education up to
grade IV. The solar lighting makes the school schedule flexible, and after
school many students take home a re-charged solar lantern to study by. Parents
and villagers receive on-board training on children’s and women’s rights,
nutrition, health and hygiene, sustainable farming, marketing systems and
climate-change adaptation. Almost 70,000 children have benefited since the start
of the project in 2002. The project is funded from multiple sources, including
crops, fisheries and the conversion of kerosene lanterns into solar-powered
lanterns.
Cambodian Children's Fund – Generational Change through
Education
Since 2004, the Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF) has
helped children who reside and work in the Steung Meanchey landfill district,
one of the most impoverished and environmentally toxic places in the world, in
the outskirts of Phnom Penh. CCF has changed the lives of more than 1,000
families by focusing on education as a primary, basic need. It provides access
to clean water, food, healthcare and education, and it cares for children and
their families in four residential schools, three satellite schools, a community
medical center, a daycare center, a nursery, a maternal care program and
outreach programs. CCF’s residential schools offer safe accommodation,
healthcare, hot meals, vitamins, and accelerated learning opportunities to
nearly 450 children aged 6 to 18.
About the WISE
Awards for Education
Inaugurated in 2009, the WISE
Awards identify, showcase and promote innovative educational projects from
around the world. To date, 1,600 applications have been received from 128
countries, resulting in 122 Finalists and 24 winning projects. The 24 successful
projects have come from a variety of countries around the world, including
Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay,
South Africa, Turkey, the UK and the USA. These “real world” initiatives are
progressively building a pool of sound practice which is having a local or
global impact on education.
About the World Innovation Summit
for Education (WISE):
WISE is dedicated to building the
future of education through innovation. This global collaborative initiative was
inaugurated in 2009 by Qatar Foundation under the leadership of Her Highness
Sheikha Moza bint Nasser. Its mission is to address the challenges facing
21st-century education, to expand dialogue around the world and to implement
practical and sustainable solutions. To this end, WISE holds an annual
international Summit that is a unique meeting place for thought leaders and
experts to share best practices in education. WISE is also a continuing
initiative devoted to reaching outside the traditional circles of the education
community to promote innovation and implement concrete actions.
WISE 2012
will take place in Doha 13-15 November 2012. For full details see the WISE
website: www.wise-qatar.org
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