January 2025
Education researchers Wolfgang Lutz, Mark Jordans, Marwa Zahr, and Luke Stannard were honored with the 2024 Yidan Prize this past December. Lutz was awarded the 2024 Yidan Prize for Education Research, and Jordans, Zahr, and Stannard were awarded the 2024 Yidan Prize for Education Development.
The Yidan Prize is one of the most prestigious awards worldwide in the field. The news was announced in September by the Yidan Prize Foundation in Hong Kong, with a ceremony in December.
Lutz is a Distinguished Emeritus Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. In its announcement, the foundation stated that Lutz’s work “has shaped our understanding of how education underpins human potential and well-being.”
Andreas Schleicher, head of the Yidan Prize for Education Research judging panel, and director of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Directorate of Education and Skills, highlighted that Lutz “is one of the world’s leading demographers. . . . His work provides the scientific basis for numerically demonstrating the longer-term consequences of near-term investments in education.”
Jordans, Zahr, and Stannard, all from the “Can’t Wait to Learn Program” team from the War Child Alliance, are “responsible for developing an evidence-based care system consisting of education, mental health, and child protection interventions to improve the well-being of children affected by armed conflict,” according to the foundation’s announcement.
Dorothy K. Gordon, head of the Yidan Prize for Education Development judging panel, and chair of the UNESCO Information for All Programme and board member of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, stated that they have “led an education technology initiative that uses the highest standards of evidence-based methodologies to deliver quality education to children who are among the least served.”
AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine serves on the Yidan Prize judging panel.