Prakriya Green Wisdom School and Sri Kumaran Children's Home of Bangalore were among the five winners of the Wipro 'Earthian' awards for excellence in education.
The IT bellwether, which funds the Azim Premji University through the Azim Premji Foundation to train teachers and professionals, has designed the Earthian programme to foster excellence in school and colleges across the country.
Eminent writer Ruskin Bond and Wipro chairman Azim Premji Saturday presented five awards each in school and college categories, selected from 1,700 registrations from all over the country.
The awards comprise a trophy, certificate and cash prize of Rs 3 lakh for colleges and Rs 2 lakh for schools.
The other three award winning schools are Rishi Valley School in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, Kendriya Vidyalaya at Vigyan Vihar in New Delhi, and Anubhuti School at Jalgaon in Maharashtra.
The premier Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) was among the five winning colleges - IIM Kozhikode, IIM Indore, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kharagpur in West Bengal and Indian Business School in Hyderabad.
Under the two-phase engagement programme, participants are commissioned to write a critical essay on themes related to sustainability such as climate change, water management, biodiversity and sustainable cities.
"The aim is to engage with the education system through faculty programmes, school activities and projects within the institute and community," Premji said at the award function held at the premier Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in this tech hub.
In the second phase, the selected institutes become a part of a long-term engagement programme, with the goal of helping the winning institutions weave and embed the building blocks, principles and practices of sustainability into the learning process.
Bond interacted with the students on the need to nurture sensitivity to nature.
"Sustainability and its challenges are critical and must involve students in schools and colleges as they are future policy makers, scientists, administrators and educationists," Wipro chief sustainability officer Anurag Behar said on the occasion.