Dr Rukmini Banerji and Professor Eric Hanushek awarded the 2021 Yidan Prize – the world’s highest education accolade
Dr Rukmini Banerji and
Professor Eric A. Hanushek
have been
awarded the 2021 Yidan Prize, the world’s highest education accolade, in
recognition of their ground-breaking work addressing a crucial piece of
the education puzzle: improving quality of education
and outcomes for learners at scale.
Following a rigorous judging process, conducted by an independent judging committee of recognized education experts,
Dr Rukmini Banerji and
Professor Eric A. Hanushek
were selected as the recipients of the 2021 Yidan Prize for Education
Research and Yidan Prize for Education Development. They
will join nine laureates who have been awarded the Yidan Prize since its inception in 2016, established by the
Yidan Prize Foundation -
a global philanthropic education foundation that
inspires progress and change in education.
Supporting 2021 laureates to improve teaching quality and learning outcomes
Dr Rukmini Banerji, Chief Executive Officer of the
Pratham Education Foundation,
is awarded the 2021 Yidan Prize for Education Development for
her work in improving learning outcomes. The Annual Status of Education
Report (ASER) assessment approach, pioneered by Dr Banerji and her team
in India, revealed literacy and numeracy gaps among children who had
already spent several years at school. To close
these gaps, her team’s “Teaching at the Right Level” (TaRL) program
works with schools and local communities to provide basic reading and
arithmetic skills, ensuring no children are left behind. This
systematic, replicable model reaches millions of children
annually across the country and is spreading around the globe.
“Dr
Rukmini Banerji and the Pratham team have a clear mission: ‘Every child
in school and learning well’. A reminder that we need to focus on
education quality and
not just school enrolments. The solutions that they have deployed
towards this goal have proven to be cost-effective and scalable with a
demonstrated potential to impact globally—disruptive education
innovation with transformative results”,
said Dorothy K. Gordon, head of Yidan Prize for Education Development judging panel, and
Board Member of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education.
With
the support of the Yidan Prize, Dr Banerji plans to strengthen and
expand Pratham’s work with young children so that strong foundations can
be built early in
a child’s life. Dr Banerji believes this will contribute significantly
towards the goal of seeing “every child in school and learning well”.
Professor
Eric A. Hanushek, Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
of Stanford University, is awarded the 2021 Yidan Prize for Education
Research. His
work focuses on education outcomes and the importance of teaching
quality and has transformed both research and policy internationally.
His work helped shape the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4
(ensure inclusive and equitable quality education)
by reframing targets for learning outcomes and has shown that it’s how
much students learn – and not how many years they spend in school – that
boosts economies.
“Like
no one else, Eric has been able to link the fields of economics and
education. From designing better and fairer systems for evaluating
teacher performance to
linking better learning outcomes to long-run economic and social
progress, he has made an amazing range of education policy areas
amenable to rigorous economic analysis.” said Mr Andreas Schleicher,
head of the Yidan Prize for Education Research judging panel.
With
the Yidan Prize funding, Professor Hanushek is planning a research
fellow program in Africa, supporting analytical capacity to shape
education policies from a
local perspective.
Most diverse pool of prize nominations to date
“The quality and diversity of this year’s nominations reflect the drive and passion around the world to unlock new approaches
to education. Our nominees are working on projects that span over 130 countries
and territories. They are rethinking education systems from top to bottom, tackling inequities and empowering learners,”
Dr Koichiro Matsuura, Chairman of the Yidan Prize Judging Committee and the former Director-General of UNESCO
commented.
“We
are
also
delighted to welcome five new judges to our panel — adding new
perspectives and strengthening the voices of both women and
representatives from more diverse regions
to discuss big ideas from some of the world’s brightest minds.”
The Yidan Prize community is making an impact on global education challenges
Each laureate will be awarded HK$30 million (approximately US$3.9 million), half of which is a project fund – enabling
a series of innovative and progressive education projects to scale up and support millions of learners globally.
All
Yidan Prize laureates
will join the Yidan
Council of Luminaries
to work collaboratively with distinguished
education leaders. The Council works together and speaks with a
collective voice to shed light on the importance of restoring and
rethinking education with innovative ideas. Sharing a diversity of
expertise and insights, they: have contributed to the UNESCO
Futures of Education initiative on how schools can prepare for the future;
are working with the Global Mindset Initiative to build a foundation
for a growth mindset research to achieve quality education for students
globally; have spoken at high-level conferences such as the
Asian Development Bank’s International Skills Forum, to discuss the latest education innovations
needed for a new normal.
2022 Yidan Prize nominations open on 19 October
Now
in its fifth year, the Yidan Prize has attracted many high-quality
nominations, with projects reaching and positively impacting
learners globally, representing diverse perspectives, cultures and
geographies. Nominations for the 2022 Yidan Prize will be open from 19 October 2021 until March 2022.
Meanwhile,
the 2021 laureates will be formally recognized at the Yidan Prize
Awards Presentation Ceremony and the Yidan Prize Annual Summit held on 5
December 2021.
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