The award ceremony of the 2022 edition of the UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Education was held in its headquarters in Paris, France on Thursday.

The award, which was announced in June, went to Smart Education of China, a digital platform run by China's National Center for Educational Technology, and the National Resource Hub, belonging to the National Forum for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education of Ireland.

The prize was presented by Stefania Giannini, UNESCO's assistant director-general for Education, and Mohammed Mubarak Juma, Minister of Education in Bahrain.

Giannini hailed Smart Education of China as an outstanding initiative to ensure universal access to and effective use of public digital learning platforms, which has shown the world how to use digital technology to make teaching and learning more accessible, and provides useful experience for global digital education reform.

Smart Education of China, officially rolled out in 2022, is an all-encompassing platform with a wide range of learning resources for all levels of education.

It also provides a rich pool of extracurricular materials to support the users' comprehensive learning, on topics including mental health and well-being, sports and arts.

"The initiative provides digital competency development and has trained more than 10 million teachers, as well as reaching learners in remote and rural areas, thus contributing to the quality and equity of education in China," said the UNESCO.

China attaches great importance to the development of digital education and regards it as an important part of the digital China initiative, said the Chinese representative at the ceremony.

Since 2022, the Ministry of Education has launched the national education digitalization strategic action, focusing on learning, teaching, school management and educational innovation. The launch and large-scale application of the platform reflects the continuous spillover effect of digital technology on the development of education, which has effectively served the construction of a lifelong education system for all, and promoted education equity and high-quality development, said the representative, adding that China is willing to share high-quality digital education resources with the international community, discuss digital education solutions, and jointly promote digital education capacity building, so as to make greater contribution to promoting global digital education exchanges and cooperation.

Established in 2005, the UNESCO ICT Prize is to reward organizations and individuals who "are implementing outstanding projects and promoting the creative use of technologies to enhance learning, teaching and overall educational performance in the digital age," said the UNESCO.