Founded by T4 Education and HP, the new award will be given to an outstanding individual who has demonstrated impact, leadership, and advocacy in the field of education

Singapore’s Duriya Aziz Singapore Wala, Senior Vice President, Education (International), at Scholastic Inc, and Yuhyun Park, founder of the DQ Institute, have been named among the ten Finalists for the inaugural Asia Education Medal. Founded this year by T4 Education and HP, the new award will be given to an outstanding individual who has demonstrated impact, leadership, and advocacy in the field of education.

The Asia Education Medal recognises the tireless work of those who are transforming education across the continent – celebrating the stories of those who have lit the spark of change so others will be inspired to take up the torch. It is given to an outstanding individual who has demonstrated impact, leadership, and advocacy in the field of education.

The winner of the Asia Education Medal will be invited to attend the World Schools Summit in Dubai on 23-24 November and, in recognition of the urgent need to solve the teacher recruitment and retention crisis to tackle learning gaps, the winner will be entitled to nominate a school of their choice to receive membership of T4 Education’s Best School to Work programme – an independent, evidence-based mechanism to certify schools for their culture and help them transform their working environment to attract and retain the best teachers.

Duriya Aziz Singapore Wala is Senior Vice President, Education (International), at Scholastic Inc, the global children’s publishing, education and media company. Born and brought up in Mumbai, India, Dr. Aziz has called Singapore home for four decades. She is best known for introducing Singapore's mathematics pedagogy and programmes to more than 50 countries across Asia and the world.

Dr. Aziz has worked as a champion for reading and mathematics all over the world. She knows that confidence in reading gives students confidence to do maths and confidence in maths gives kids the confidence to deal with challenges and to solve problems. It gives them agency. Consequently, her work in education, at Scholastic, has focused on taking proven pedagogical best practices from one education system and working with education leaders and teachers in a different context to implement them in ways that are suited to the new context and respect their cultural norms and teacher beliefs. 

One area of impact has been in mathematics education. Studies show that in a technology-driven world, performance in maths is the new yardstick for success in school and beyond and early success is strongly predictive of later outcomes, yet many countries are falling behind. Dr. Aziz has collaborated with Singapore’s Ministry of Education, which is a consistent top performer in maths, and with Ministries and Departments of Education and districts and schools in diverse countries around the world, to develop and implement blended instructional solutions and professional development of teachers based on the pedagogical principles of Singapore mathematics. Crucially, teaching practice has been influenced to change from a sole emphasis on rote learning of computational procedures to deep conceptual understanding and development of problem-solving skills.

Likewise, reading success is critical to future-ready students. Dr. Aziz’s work in literacy at Scholastic is focused on making reading and learning accessible to all learners by crafting blended solutions that are informed by evidence- and research-based best practices and are at the same time, contextually and culturally appropriate.

Inspired by her grandchildren, Dr. Aziz has written several picture books and has also authored textbooks for learners of English and maths, as well as academic articles on English language teaching and materials development for education. She regularly presents at education conferences and conducts professional development for educators. She volunteers actively in her community – the Dawoodi Bohra community – where she focuses on education initiatives and those concerning women and children and is a strong advocate for girls’ education and life-long learning. 

Yuhyun Park is the founder of the DQ Institute in Singapore, an international think-tank dedicated to setting global standards for digital intelligence to ensure the safety, empowerment, and wellbeing of people, organisations, and nations in the AI age.

Dr. Park has worked as a global expert in digital education, safety, and ethics for the past two decades. Her contributions have been recognised with prestigious honours, including being named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, an Ashoka Fellow, and an Eisenhower Fellow. She has also received multiple UNESCO awards and the KAIST award.

Dr. Park created the Digital Intelligence (DQ) Framework — the global standard for digital literacy, digital skills, and digital readiness, approved by the IEEE Standards Association and endorsed by the OECD, IEEE, and World Economic Forum (IEEE 3527.1TM). She also developed the Child Online Safety Index, the world’s first metric tracker to help nations understand their children’s online safety status, which has shifted narratives around child protection on the internet.