South Africa wins World’s Best School Prize for community collaboration

Spark Soweto, an independent, partially government-funded kindergarten and primary school in Johannesburg, South Africa, has won this year’s World’s Best School Prize for Community Collaboration.

Soweto has become a catalyst for change for its disadvantaged community that was once symbolic with the Apartheid struggle. The five World’s Best School Prizes, founded last year by T4 Education in collaboration with Accenture, American Express, and the Lemann Foundation, are the world’s most prestigious education prizes and this year’s winners share an award of $250,000.
 
Institución Educativa Municipal Montessori sede San Francisco in Colombia, won the World’s Best School Prize for Environmental Action, while the Riverside School in India, won the World’s Best School Prize for Innovation.
 
The Max Rayne Hand in Hand Jerusalem School won the World’s Best School Prize for Overcoming Adversity, while EEMTI Joaquim Bastos Gonçalves in Brazil, won the World’s Best School Prize for Supporting Healthy Lives.
 
Government Girls Day Secondary School, Runjin Sambo, a government school in Sokoto, Nigeria, which has transformed the lives of thousands of teenage girls through its menstrual hygiene programme, made the Top 10 shortlist for the World’s Best School Prize for Overcoming Adversity.
 
Founder of T4 Education and the World’s Best School Prizes, Visas Pota, tasked educators to emulate Soweto and the difference it has made to many lives.

He also enjoined the government at all levels to look at the school’s trailblazing work as they seek answers to the challenges confronting their schools.
 
“By prioritising affordability, community engagement, and environmental stewardship, the school has become a catalyst for change for its disadvantaged community, which was once symbolic of the struggle against Apartheid,” Pota said.