More than 3 million students have benefited from the improved learning environments that are an indirect result of Camfed's work.

Besides financially supporting students, the organization trains teachers, mentors and community activists. It has also created a 25,000-member network of Camfed graduates who use their own experiences to teach and advise their communities, something the organization calls a "virtuous cycle."

Providing universal primary education for children has been declared one of the goals of the United Nation's post-2015 development framework, and technological advances promise to shake the foundations of even the poorest education systems. The announcement of the education prize on the first day of WISE's sixth world summit meeting, in a year when Kailash Satyarthi of India and Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their fight to bring education to all children, put the topic of children's education, especially for girls, at the forefront of the discussion.

"There is a feeling, a zeitgeist, a global awareness around this issue, and we have to take advantage it," Cotton said in a telephone interview from Cambridge, England, the week before the prize was announced.

This sentiment was shared by others who attended the meeting.