$250,000 World’s Best School Prizes: Delhi Nagar Nigam School shortlisted among Top 10

Nagar Nigam Pratibha Baalika Vidhyalaya (NPBV) F-Block, Dilshad Colony-1st, a government school in Delhi, India, has broken through the traditional mould to provide community-based interventions and support to bridge the gap between teachers, students, and parents, has been named in the Top 10 shortlist for the World’s Best School Prize for Community Collaboration.

World’s Best School Prizes: Five inspirational Indian schools have been named in the Top 10 shortlists for the $250,000 World’s Best School Prizes. Nagar Nigam Pratibha Baalika Vidhyalaya (NPBV) F-Block, Dilshad Colony-1st, a government school in Delhi, India, which has broken through the traditional mould to provide community-based interventions and support to bridge the gap between teachers, students, and parents, has been named in the Top 10 shortlist for the World’s Best School Prize for Community Collaboration.

The school’s Family Champion programme has empowered parents to become leaders in their communities, thanks to which 65 out-of-school children have re-enrolled in school. With the school community's collaborative efforts, NPBV F-Block, Dilshad Colony-1st has redefined community engagement and proven that it can lead to exceptional success.

Family Champion programme to combat remote learning

In 2020, the school’s teachers began to notice a growing disconnect between the students and their studies, mainly due to the COVID-19 lockdowns and the community feeling overwhelmed with their financial situation and other insecurities. In response, the school developed and launched its Family Champion programme to help students and their families to navigate the challenges of remote learning and stay engaged with their education.

The community parents, known as Family Champions, received a need analysis, baseline assessment, and continue to receive two training sessions per month led by Kshamtalaya Foundation to prepare them for their roles as educators and teacher leaders. In its first year, the programme onboarded 35 Family Champions, who focused on strategies for engaging children in learning at home, COVID and vaccination awareness, and self-care.

The programme then led to 54 community learning centres, 61 parent learning ambassadors, and home-based learning support, beginning with 30 Family Champion-led Learning Circles – collaborative and participatory learning groups – across the community. As a result, 90% of Family Champions have reported feeling more confident holding conversations with parents and teachers. The Learning Circles benefited 1,665 children in the past three years from 2020-23. This demonstrates the programme’s importance in building capacity, empowering parents, and improving children's foundational literacy and numeracy skills in the community.

Top 3 finalists to be announced in September 

The Top 3 finalists for each of the five World’s Best School Prizes will be announced in September 2023 followed by the winners in October. The winner of each Prize will be chosen based on rigorous criteria by a Judging Academy comprising distinguished leaders across the globe including academics, educators, NGOs, social entrepreneurs, government, civil society, and the private sector.

A prize of US$250,000 will be equally shared among the winners of the five Prizes, with each receiving an award of US$50,000.

All 50 shortlisted schools will be invited to share their best practices through events on the T4 Communities app or School Transformation Toolkits that showcase their “secret sauce” to innovative approaches and step-by-step instructions on how others can replicate their methods to help improve education everywhere.

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