Deadline: January 31, 2022
Applications are open for the World Bank/Financial Times Blog Writing Contest 2022. This is your chance to get creative. The World Bank and the Financial Times are looking for your most inventive ideas, high-quality writing, and solutions to improve education outcomes beyond the pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt our way of life, causing education systems to experience their worst crisis in a century. At the peak of school closures in April 2020, 94 percent of students—or 1.6 billion children—were out of school worldwide. Around 700 million students today are still studying from home.
The pandemic is putting an entire generation of students at risk of losing about $10 trillion in future lifetime earnings. It has exacerbated the Learning Poverty crisis, and the impact on the human capital of this generation of learners will be long-lasting.
As we recover from COVID-19 this is an opportunity to create more equitable and resilient education systems around the world. More than 18 months into this crisis, we are learning what works and what we can do to improve learning outcomes, at home, in classrooms or a combination of both. As the global community works on identifying solutions, the World Bank and Financial Times want to hear from those most affected – young people. They want to hear from you! Tell them what you think by joining this blog competition.
You can do so by telling them:
“What insights from your experience during the COVID-19 pandemic do you think would improve learning? What should educators and policymakers do differently?”
Prizes
- The winning entry will be published in the Financial Times (at its sole discretion) and the World Bank blog. Based on restrictions during the pandemic the World Bank will also find additional, virtual ways to honor the winner during 2022.
Eligibility
- Participants must be enrolled in high school or a version of secondary education and should be between the ages of 15-19 years at the time of submission.
- Entries can be submitted in English, French, Spanish and Arabic.
- The winning entries will be published in English.
- Entries should be the work of the submitter and cannot be collaborative or written by a proxy.
Judging
Entries will be judged against originality, creativity, writing quality, and solutions presented. The judging panel’s decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into. Winners will be contacted via the contact information provided with their submission.
Application
Submissions should include:
- A strong blog or essay, that is no longer than 500 words.
- Your name, age, school, email, and country you live in.
- Photos, videos, visualizations that help support your story, are optional.
For more information, visit WB/FT Contest.
