Duriya Aziz Singapore Wala is Senior Vice President, Education (International), at Scholastic Inc, the world's largest publisher and distributor of children’s content. Born and brought up in Mumbai, India, Dr. Aziz has called Singapore home for four decades. She is best known for introducing Singapore's mathematics pedagogy and programmes to more than 50 countries across Asia and the world.

Dr. Aziz has worked as a champion for reading and mathematics all over the world. She knows that confidence in reading gives students confidence to do maths and confidence in maths gives kids the confidence to deal with challenges and to solve problems. It gives them agency. Consequently, her work in education, at Scholastic, has focused on taking proven pedagogical best practices from one education system and working with education leaders and teachers in a different context to implement them in ways that are suited to the new context and respect their cultural norms and teacher beliefs.

One area of impact has been in mathematics education. Studies show that in a technology-driven world, performance in maths is the new yardstick for success in school and beyond and early success is strongly predictive of later outcomes, yet many countries are falling behind. Dr. Aziz has worked with Singapore’s Ministry of Education, which is a consistent top performer in maths, and with Ministries and Departments of Education and districts and schools in diverse countries around the world, to develop and implement blended instructional solutions and professional development of teachers based on the pedagogical principles of Singapore mathematics. Crucially, teaching practice has been influenced to change from a sole emphasis on rote learning of computational procedures to deep conceptual understanding and development of problem-solving skills.

Likewise, reading success is critical to future-ready students. Dr. Aziz’s work in literacy at Scholastic is focused on making reading and learning accessible to all learners by crafting blended solutions that are informed by evidence- and research-based best practices and are at the same time, contextually and culturally appropriate.

Inspired by her grandchildren, Dr. Aziz has written several picture books and has also authored textbooks for learners of English and maths, as well as academic articles on English language teaching and materials development for education. She regularly presents at education conferences and conducts professional development for educators. She volunteers actively in her community – the Dawoodi Bohra community – where she focuses on education initiatives and those concerning women and children and is a strong advocate for girls’ education and life-long learning.