In a classroom in Rio de Janeiro’s Complexo da Maré, a pupil adjusts a virtual-reality headset, part of a lesson that uses robotics and 3D printing to tackle real problems in the sprawling favela. The Escola Municipal GET IV Centenário, where attendance runs above 90% and the literacy rate reaches 97%, has just been named a finalist in the World’s Best School Prizes 2026, a global competition often called the ‘World Cup of Schools’. It is one of four Brazilian institutions on the shortlist, a tally unmatched by any other nation this year.

The school’s ‘Dream Factory’ methodology, which blends technology with socio-emotional development, sits alongside finalists from across Latin America and the Middle East. In Argentina, Northfield School in Escobar earned a spot in the innovation category for a data-driven model that tracks each pupil’s reading fluency and wellbeing, while Colegio San Pedro Apóstol in Córdoba turned its campus into an environmental laboratory where students use native plants to repel scorpions. Two UAE schools were also shortlisted: one for a student-designed healthy-food dispenser that prevents allergic reactions, another for embedding community collaboration in one of the world’s most diverse cities. According to a T4 Education representative for Latin America, the prizes recognise schools that ‘dared to push a different vision and turned it into reality through community commitment’.

The same week, the Times Higher Education Sustainability Impact Ratings 2026 placed several universities from the Global South in prominent positions. Indonesia’s Universitas Gadjah Mada jumped 41 places to rank 41st globally, driven by strong performance in decent work, clean water, and quality education. Universitas Hasanuddin, in Makassar, ranked 31st worldwide for life below water, a result its rector called proof of its identity as a maritime campus. Abu Dhabi University entered the top 301–400 band, with a 14th-place global finish in reduced inequalities and a joint 76th in decent work and economic growth. All three institutions outperformed hundreds of older, wealthier peers in Europe and North America on metrics tied to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Viewed from London, where T4 Education will host a summit in January 2027, the concentration of finalists and high performers outside the traditional centres of academic prestige is striking. The World’s Best School Prizes, founded in 2022, explicitly seek to surface practices that go beyond conventional paradigms, while the THE Impact Ratings reward universities that embed sustainability into teaching, research, and outreach. For many of these schools and campuses, the recognition is less about prestige than about proving that innovation can flourish in resource-constrained settings—and that the solutions they develop are worth sharing globally.

At the Escola Baniwa Kalipana in the Amazon, a finalist for environmental action, students are now part of a global conversation about how education can protect the ecosystems on which their communities depend. The public vote for the Community Choice Award opened on 25 June, inviting anyone to weigh in on which school most inspires them. In the Maré favela, the pupils with their 3D printers and virtual-reality headsets are not just learning; they are making a case that the future of education is being written far from the world’s wealthy capitals.