Unesco-Hamdan bin Rashid prize winners honoured

Addressing the award-giving ceremony at the Unesco headquarters, Shaikh Hamdan commended the organisation’s role as an incubator for education and culture worldwide, pointing out to the joint efforts being made by the prize and Unesco to encourage and motivate teachers in developing communities and to recognise their dedication and efforts to elevate human communities by spreading education and knowledge, eliminating poverty and removing obstacles facing others to change their lives for the better.

For this third edition of the prize, three laureates were selected from 99 projects received from 64 countries. The prize was given to the following:

Oxfam Novib and Education International (Belgium) for its programme “Quality Educators for All: Every Child needs a Good Teacher (Quality-Ed)”. The programme was established in Mali and Uganda in 2007. It brings together government representatives, teachers unions, civil society and academics to develop a competence profile for primary school teachers, in a bid to reform teacher training and professional development programmes;

SOS Villages d’enfants (Madagascar) for its Teacher Training Programme, which has provided training, through non-formal classes, specifically targeting primary and secondary school teachers since 2011; and

The ProEd Foundation (Panama) was chosen for its Teachers Teaching Teachers – Professional Learning Community (PLC) project. This project aims to provide high-quality, continuous professional development for teachers and school administrators of all ethnic, socioeconomic and gender orientations in Panama’s public and low-income private schools.

The prize, created in 2009 and funded by Shaikh Hamdan bin Rashid, is awarded every two years to projects that make an exceptional contribution to the improvement of teaching quality, especially in developing countries or in disadvantaged or marginalised communities. The prize is worth $270,000.