About Pratham
Pratham Education Foundation (Pratham) is one of the largest education NGOs in India with a record of innovative, rigorously evaluated programs that have inspired similar programs across three continents. With a history spanning 30 years, Pratham’s work today extends from programs for early and elementary years to girls and women, and youth skilling. Through programs covering 25 states and Union Territories, in an average year, Pratham usually reaches over 6 million children and youth. This is achieved through a combination of efforts: directly working with children and youth in communities, as well as through collaborations with state and district-level governments.
Pratham has received notable awards such as the Lui Che Woo Prize, WISE Prize for Innovation, Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Henry R Kravis Prize in Leadership and the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year for Public Service. Pratham also received the 2021 Yidan Prize for Education Development and the Yashraj Bharati Samman in 2025.
For more details, refer to www.pratham.org
About the Role
The Vikasit Zilla – Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Fellow will build and strengthen the presence of Pratham’s Youth and Skilling program in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district in Maharashtra by cultivating relationships with key stakeholders across the local ecosystem. The Fellow acts as Pratham’s anchor for ecosystem development in the geography — mapping industry, government, and institutional stakeholders across CSN’s two big engines of opportunity — manufacturing (Waluj, Chikalthana and Shendra MIDC, and the upcoming Toyota-anchored AURIC-Bidkin belt) and heritage & hospitality (Ellora, Ajanta and the district’s wider heritage circuit) — feeding that intelligence into a geography-centric skilling strategy, and converting relationships into employment, apprenticeship, and collaboration opportunities for youth over time.
Key Responsibilities
- Build and nurture relationships with local industries — automotive and component manufacturers across the MIDC belts and the emerging Toyota/AURIC-Bidkin ecosystem, and heritage & hospitality businesses along the Ellora-Ajanta circuit — to create employment, apprenticeship, and collaboration opportunities, following a “train only against verified demand” approach.
- Engage Nath School of Business and Technology (NSBT), government departments, and other institutional stakeholders to strengthen partnerships and identify opportunities for joint initiatives.
- Support the development of a geography-centric skilling strategy for Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, aligned with local industry demand and workforce needs.
- Map ecosystem stakeholders — employers, industry associations, educational institutions, and government bodies — and build a live, ongoing demand-mapping exercise with local industry.
- Coordinate meetings, follow-ups, and partnership activities with external stakeholders.
- Identify new opportunities for programme expansion and collaboration within the district.
- Support documentation, reporting, and tracking of partnership outcomes and progress.
- Anchor ecosystem development for the geography, enabling Pratham to build a strong, locally relevant skilling programme over time.
Role & Responsibilities
- Daily/weekly outreach (calls/visits/meetings) to industry contacts, government offices, and institutional stakeholders; log interactions and follow-up actions.
- Maintain and regularly update a live stakeholder- and demand-mapping tracker covering employers, industry associations, educational institutions, and government bodies.
- Prepare meeting notes, action-item trackers, and partnership status updates for the central and Hub teams.
- Draft and coordinate MOUs, partnership proposals, and collaboration agreements with support from the central team.
- Compile and share periodic partnership progress reports with the programme and central team.
- Support employer engagement for placement and apprenticeship tie-ups, working closely with training and placement teams.
- Feed ecosystem and demand insights into the ongoing development of the geography-centric skilling strategy.
- Travel regularly within and around Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar for stakeholder and field visits.
Qualifications & Experience
- Graduate degree in any stream preferred.
- 3-5 years of experience in community work and relationship management.
- Prior experience in stakeholder engagement, partnerships, business development, or field-based community mobilisation is preferred (NGO/skilling/industry-liaison background a plus); familiarity with CSN’s geography and presence
- Comfortable with regular fieldwork and willingness to travel to different locations.
Skills & competencies
- Excellent communication; fluency in Hindi and Marathi is expected, with working knowledge of English.
- Strong relationship-building, networking, and negotiation skills with industry, government, and institutional stakeholders.
- Strong presentation skills — able to represent Pratham Skilling credibly in front of industry, government, and institutional stakeholders.
- Quick and comfortable with data — able to organise stakeholder/demand-mapping data, spot patterns, and turn it into clear inputs for strategy and reporting.
- Proficiency in MS Excel and MS Word is mandatory, for maintaining stakeholder trackers and reports.
- Ability to think strategically — translating ecosystems and demand insights into actionable inputs for a local skilling strategy.
- Proactive and self-driven; comfortable working with a degree of independence to anchor a new geography.
- Strong organisational and documentation skills; timely and accurate reporting.
- Comfortable coordinating across multiple external and internal stakeholders simultaneously.
Remuneration & benefits
- Compensation will be aligned with industry standards and will be open to discussion based on the candidate’s experience, skills, and interview performance.
- Paid leave, including casual, sick, maternity, paternity, and earned leave, in accordance with the organisation’s HR policy.
- Statutory benefits such as Provident Fund (PF), Employees’ State Insurance (ESI), gratuity, and other applicable benefits, wherever eligible under prevailing laws.
- Reimbursement of approved official travel and work-related expenses, as per organisational policy.
- Professional development opportunities, including access to training, workshops, conferences, and learning resources.
- Health and accident insurance coverage, as per organisational policy.
Location: Pratham Arora Centre for Education (PACE) – Khultabad, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Maharashtra
Application Process
Interested candidates can mail their CV to ajinkya.dudhat@pratham.org, shreya.agarwal@pratham.org, swapnil.rathod@pratham.org.
Note: Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we will not be able to provide individual responses to every applicant and will reach out only to shortlisted candidates. We appreciate your understanding and patience.
