Behind every thriving classroom is a dedicated teacher with the knowledge, skills and dispositions to foster student learning. This year, ten initiatives from around the world are being recognised for supporting teachers as finalists of the UNESCO-Hamdan Prize for Teacher Development. Of these, three will be selected as laureates and awarded the Prize during the award ceremony for the ninth edition, held on 5 October at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, and online, as part of the World Teachers’ Day global celebration.
The UNESCO-Hamdan Prize was created in 2008 to support the improvement of teaching and learning in line with Sustainable Development Goal 4 on education, one of UNESCO’s priorities. Generously supported by the Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation for Medical and Educational Sciences, the Prize awards $300,000 every two years, equally divided among the three winning organizations.
For this edition, ten finalists have been selected. These initiatives are at the forefront of efforts to advance education quality worldwide, offering innovative solutions to the challenges faced by teachers, learners and their communities. Their commitment to empowering educators, improving learning environments and fostering community engagement continues to have a lasting impact on teaching practices and learner outcomes, both in their local context and beyond.
Meet the ten finalists (in alphabetical order by country).
Brunei Darussalam: Building a nationwide system of peer-learning among teachers
In Brunei Darussalam, the Ministry of Education has developed the “From Class to Nation: Brunei Darussalam’s Teachers Teaching Teachers Collaborative Learning System” project. The initiative engages teachers nationwide in a coordinated series of professional development opportunities that strengthen career progression and classroom competencies. It promotes a “teacher-to-teacher” model grounded in national teaching standards and competency-based professional learning, helping to advance teaching quality and equity across the country. To date, it has recorded 33,596 course participations among a cohort of 6,700 teachers.
