Village school in Pune district is among top 3 finalists for World’s Best School Prize

A school located in a remote village in Pune district, Maharashtra is creating news as it is one of the three finalists for the inaugural 250,000 World’s Best School Prizes.  Launched in the United Kingdom, these prizes aim to identify and felicitate schools worldwide for their contribution to the progress of society.

Situated in Bopkhel village, the institution is Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation English Medium School and now it is in the public advisory vote round of the prize in the Community Collaboration category.

The prize will be awarded to the winner next month during World Education Week.

Run as a public-private partnership by Akanksha Foundation, an NGO and the local government, most of the students in the school belong to low-income families.

Praising the school, Vikas Pota, Founder of T4 Education, the UK-based digital media platform which has founded the prize said: “Teachers everywhere will be inspired by the example of this outstanding Indian school.”

Sharing details about the school, T4 Education said: “PCMC English Medium School, Bopkhel also works with local doctors, grocers and religious leaders to help create programmes that help parents in financial need.”

It went on to add: “The school launched a programme of free medical check-ups in the community and ‘Master Chef’ style classes were launched that taught families about how to have a healthy and balanced diet. Students are also part of a daily fruit eating initiative that keeps them on track for healthy eating and every week they have a set meal plan. The impact has trickled into their home lives as parents have started to follow the same nutrition plan.”

Five World’s Best School Prizes will be given in the Community Collaboration, Environmental Action, Innovation, Overcoming Adversity, and Supporting Healthy Lives categories with the finalists chosen from thousands of entries.

The prize money of 250,000 dollars will be shared equally among the winners of the five prizes, each receiving 50,000.

The school on winning the prize money plans to donate a part of it to the Akanksha Foundation to be distributed to other schools run by them.

The 50 schools that have been shortlisted for the five prizes will share their best practices during events at World Education Week in October and through School Transformation Toolkits.