Pahang Primary School Shortlisted Among Top 3 Finalists In World's Best School Prizes
They are in the running to win USD50,000 (RM230,000) and voting is currently open!
By May Vin Ang — 27 Sep 2022, 12:11 PM
A primary school in Kuantan, Pahang, has been nominated as one of three finalists for World's Best School Prizes and is in the running to win a cash prize of USD50,000 (RM230,000)
Sekolah Kebangsaan Kempadang made it into the finals of the 'Innovation' category — one of the five categories under the award, which is now open to public voting.
The school, whose majority of students come from B40 households, is in the running after coming up with their own digital system to track students' progress, called SmartZoom.
The two other finalists are an international private school in Japan and another public primary school in Chile.
The World's Best School Prizes is organised by T4 Education, a global organisation committed to improving education around the world, in collaboration with Yayasan Hasanah, Accenture, and American Express.
SmartZoom allows teachers to input data, track students' learning progress, and come up with learning solutions using a simple traffic light system
Easily visualised on Google Sheets, students' progress for each subject is classified into red, yellow, and green – red and yellow for students who require help, and green for those who have excellent results.
Besides having a digital system, the students are also informed of their performance and have tokens to indicate their results to the class, whereby teachers hope that the students in green will help their classmates in red during lessons.
The teachers at the school said the results of each subject have improved since they implemented SmartZoom.
According to Free Malaysia Today, if they win prize money, Sekolah Kebangsaan Kempadang intends to use the funds to improve and expand the capacity of SmartZoom, and share it with other schools in the country.
Yayasan Hasanah trustee and managing director Datuk Shahira Ahmed Bazari said the excellence achieved by the school is an inspiration to educators around the world
"It is continuous proof that our public schools are also capable of being among the best in the world," she said last Friday, 23 September, as quoted by New Straits Times.
"We are pleased to work with T4 Education in supporting the organisation of this award, which recognises and encourages 'bottom-up' transformations and creates a global community that learns from each other and creates a wave of positive impact on students around the world."
The top three finalists in each category of the World's Best School Awards — Community Collaboration, Environmental Action, Innovation, Overcoming Adversity, and Supporting Healthy Lives — are currently in the public voting stage until 2 October.
The winner will be announced on 19 October.
You can vote for Sekolah Kebangsaan Kempadang in the Innovation category here.
