Media & Publications

“I feel deeply humbled and proud that something that we developed for our own needs has relevance and acceptance in other parts of the global South.”

– Rukmini Banerji 

The December issue of Outlook Business Magazine highlights the Changemakers of 2024. Dr. Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham, has been profiled as a changemaker alongside prominent figures such as Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Mukesh Ambani, Diljit Dosanjh, and many others. 

Read the full article on Outlook Business: Changemakers 2024

तीन शिक्षा आयोग और चार नीतियां भी नहीं दिला सकीं प्राथमिक शिक्षा को ‘ए’ ग्रेड

Watch the full discussion here: https://youtu.be/UcEAzxYTzsU?si=s2P5UMLuxAkL4Rgh

“It is now widely accepted that local economies must contribute to and gain from their young people’s effort and learning."

Dr. Rukmini Banerji has written an article titled ‘Crafting Schools of the Future’, published on India Today. In this article, she reflects on the transformative changes outlined by the National Education Policy 2020 and envisions what schools of the future could look like—spaces where children explore, actively learn, and connect with their communities in meaningful ways.

Read the full article on India Today: Crafting Schools of the Future

Dr. Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham, was conferred the Doctor of Letters, honoris causa (DLitt), by Krea University in recognition of her exceptional services to education and development. The honour was awarded during Krea University’s convocation ceremony in Chennai on June 22 where over 350 students received their degrees.

Watch her speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJtWdC08sb8
Watch the full ceremony here: https://www.youtube.com/live/2Z-safRDeFc

Video credit: Krea University

Suman Bhattacharjea, Director (Research), ASER Centre co-wrote a blog with Ariel Fiszbein, Chair, Board of Directors, PAL Network. It addresses the scarcity of internationally comparable data on early-grade literacy and numeracy. Also, highlights the efforts of organizations like the Pratham Education Foundation and the PAL Network, emphasizing initiatives such as the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) and Citizen-Led Assessments (CLAs) to bridge this data gap.

“In 2019, supported by a Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) global grant, PAL Network, Pratham Education Foundation in India and the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) began work on developing the next entrant to the PAL toolkit of common assessments. While ICAN mirrored the original CLA vision of assessing foundational skills among school-aged children (age group 5-16), the Early Language, Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PAL-ELANA) focuses on children in the age group of 4-10 years, looking specifically at children’s acquisition of pre- and foundational literacy and numeracy skills in the period that bridges SDG target 4.2 (early childhood education) and SDG indicator 4.1.1a (grades 2/3 of primary education)."

Published on UNESCO’s World Education Blog. Read the full article: https://world-education-blog.org/2023/12/06/the-foundational-learning-data-challenge-a-civil-society-view-from-the-global-south/

Dr Rukmini Banerji has co-authored a blog titled ‘Here’s how we can turn this learning crisis around’ with Mamta Murthi, Vice President, Human Development, World Bank.

The authors reflect on ways in which learning poverty can be eradicated using different approaches. From Pratham’s Teaching at the Right Level method, which helps children acquire foundational literacy and numeracy skills, to structured pedagogy interventions and community-driven initiatives, scalable solutions play a key role in galvanizing change.

Read full article: https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/heres-how-we-can-turn-learning-crisis-around

Dr Rukmini Banerji has co-written an article titled 'Children’s Rights in the Asia-Pacific Region: Critical Reflections on Participation, Education, Girls’ Rights and Child Marriage' published by The Canadian Journal of Children’s Rights.

Dr Banerji reflects on how Pratham pioneered a profoundly different approach to working toward the fulfilment of children’s education via the delivery of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) and a teaching approach called Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL). She also explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's education and the need for immediate action to address the repercussions of school closures. Additionally, she mentions the positive outcome of increased parental engagement in children's education during the pandemic.

Find out more details here: https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/cjcr/article/view/4276

In a podcast series 'Grassroots Nation' with Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham, and Madhav Chavan, Co-Founder of Pratham, spoke about their personal experiences and Pratham's journey. In the first episode, they spoke about their early influences, the education system and the power of volunteerism and the origin of Pratham. In the second episode, they discussed the inception of Pratham, its champions, the creation of Balwadis, and its operational expansion across 3,000 communities.

Know more:
Episode 1: Dr Madhav Chavan & Dr Rukmini Banerji: Pioneers in Literacy & Learning in India
Episode 2: Dr Madhav Chavan and Dr Rukmini Banerji (Part 2): Go to the people. Love them, learn from them. 

Using Evidence to Scale Up India’s Most Promising Education Intervention: The Case of Pratham by Rukmini Banerji & Bala Venkatachalam

Rukmini Banerji has co-authored a chapter in the Oxford University Press Handbook of Program Design and Implementation Evaluation, along with Bala Venkatachalam. The chapter is about Using Evidence to Scale Up India’s Most Promising Education Intervention: The Case of Pratham

This chapter outlines how Pratham went from designing methods to understand the contours of the “learning crisis” to developing solutions that were then used at scale across the country for raising children’s ability to read and do arithmetic. Evidence has played a significant role in this journey. First, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) highlighted the “invisible problem” of children’s learning across the country. Second, Pratham’s own internal measurement systems, along with a series of randomized controlled trials, evaluated Pratham’s evolving solution for raising children’s reading and arithmetic scores. Additionally, the chapter highlights the critical role of partnerships at various levels of government, as well as community engagement, including parents and volunteers. Essential elements to Pratham’s success have been the focus on raising awareness of the problem and demonstrating simple and actionable solutions.

Read the full chapter here

Find more details about the handbook here: The Oxford Handbook of Program Design and Implementation Evaluation | Oxford Academic (oup.com)

The excerpt and the chapter have been reshared in compliance with the Oxford University Press guidelines.

In an interview with Harvard Business School, Rukmini Banerji, CEO, and Madhav Chavan, Co-founder of Pratham Education Foundation, trace Pratham's journey and the need to address gaps in the education system.

Download the full interview transcript: https://www.hbs.edu/creating-emerging-markets/Documents/transcripts/Chavan-Banerji_Final-Transcript%20for%20Web.pdf

Interview Summary

Chavan and Banerji begin the interview by reflecting on their educations and early careers prior to Pratham. Both moved to the United States for graduate studies, obtaining PhD degrees in Chemistry and Education respectively. When Chavan returned to India in 1986, he intended to become a chemistry teacher. However, he was drawn to an adult literacy program started by the Indian Prime Minister at the time, Rajiv Gandhi. The adult literacy program later began to dissipate after 1991 following India's shift towards liberalization. In 1992-93, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) began focusing on primary education with the goal of bringing business, government and the voluntary sectors together in order to understand and solve problems with the education system in India. It was in this context that Chavan co-founded Pratham in Mumbai, with the goal of implementing a new model and approach to the situation.

Banerji joined Pratham in 1996, while it was starting to expand by opening hundreds and then thousands of preschool centers around Mumbai. During her first years with Pratham, Banerji conducted a study to assess the math skills of 3rd and 4th grade students. The simple assessment evolved into ASER, the Annual Status of Education Report – an academic report that is widely used in India as well as other countries. She emphasizes the need to develop easily replicable educational tools and assessments that can stimulate policy action and change.

As India continued to develop rapidly in the 2000s, Chavan explains that the need to address gaps in the education system became increasingly clear, particularly to businesses which started establishing foundations dedicated to supporting education. As an organization, Pratham held a unique position as it worked alongside both government and businesses. They built partnerships with government at different levels, and Chavan emphasizes how that was important given that there is “no single thing called government.” He relates that working with different layers of government was comparable to “playing the whole court.”

Banerji and Chavan proceed by laying out the challenges that persist in India’s education sector, especially following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the expansion of remote learning technologies. They discuss a need to look at education as a whole from a different perspective, utilizing technology to break down barriers to learning. This includes promoting the use of PraDigi, a digital initiative that provides tablets equipped with a learning app delivering high-quality, interactive educational content. Chavan underscores the importance of utilizing such technology to foster an easily accessible and open learning environment.

To conclude the interview, Banerji and Chavan address the question of leadership succession, as Banerji became Pratham’s Chief Executive Officer in 2015 after Chavan. While Chavan remains involved, he articulates advice for leaders who should “get out of the way of the next person,” preparing the organization and relationships within it for a new leadership style. While describing themselves as different when it comes to their approach, both Banerji and Chavan express a persistent commitment to expanding the organization’s mission further, by having “every child in school and learning well.”

This article was originally published by Harvard Business School. You can read the full article here: Madhav Chavan & Rukmini Banerji.

This article was originally published by The Indian Express. You can read the full article here: ‘The school of my dreams’

It is a bright sunny Thursday morning — August 15, 2047. The school compound is packed with children and adults, current students, families and friends. There are also many others, those who have been part of this school community in past decades. On each side of the open courtyard is a big screen. People who are not here in person can link virtually to watch, participate and interact. Like always, right in the centre of the compound, on a tall pole, is the tricolour waiting to be hoisted and unfurled.

From the outside, the school building does not look different from before. But inside, it is very different. No longer can you see desks and benches in rows facing the blackboard. Now there are rooms with open space where teachers and children can organise themselves in whatever way they want. Grades have given way to stages. Libraries now have devices and tool kits that can be borrowed to take home. Laboratories are open for even young children to experiment and tinker.

A group of middle-aged women are on the stage. Twenty-five years ago, they had worked closely together. In the centre is the Standard I teacher from 2022 and her friend, the anganwadi instructor from that time. Around them are mothers, whose children were either in anganwadi or in the early grades more than two dozen years ago. From a distance, this group looks like a tight bunch of colourful flowers.

The women speak of a time, when a fearsome pandemic had shut schools for two years. Those were bad years. When the schools opened, everyone agreed that it was essential for young children to have strong foundations for future learning. Standard I and II teachers joined hands with the nearby anganwadi instructors and began to build this pathway. Mothers joined the effort, families engaged in fun learning activities with children at home and small groups of mothers met every week in their neighbourhood to discuss what more they could do together to strengthen their children’s learning, growth and development.

Since then, the village has not looked back. The path from anganwadi to school has become smoother and stronger over time. For many years now, little children enrol in first grade, confident and ready. One of the mothers invited her daughter on to the stage. The tall young lady who ran up the steps was in Standard I in 2022. Today in her early thirties, she is a surgeon in a nearby hospital. With gratitude, she embraced the women standing around her, for placing her on the road to success.

Next in line are children from the middle school stage. Their excitement is palpable even to those far away. The screens in the school yard are now showing a film made by these children. It is about water in the village. In middle school nowadays, groups of students work together, to identify a problem in the community, understand it and work towards a solution. Moving well beyond the confines of the textbook, using real life situations to learn, is now the norm. Over the years, rainfall had become erratic and uncertain. Middle school children had been tracking changes over time. They are currently working with adults to develop water storage solutions that could help everyone in the dry months.

Older students had been patiently waiting their turn. Once on stage, they speak of their time in high school. One student laughs, as she recounts how difficult her father’s life had been; his entire time in high school was dominated by exams and his life afterwards dependent solely on his exam result. Luckily, this does not happen anymore. The young girl explains — she can take any exam online anytime, whenever she feels ready. “We use ATM” she says proudly, “the Anytime Testing Machine”. She smiles some more. “My father is jealous that exams are not high stakes any more.

Today, there are so many ways to move ahead.” For example, she and a few friends had been experimenting with small business ideas. The school provided a bit of seed funding and a lot of encouragement and guidance. From the stage, she invited people of the village to look at their AI-generated movies based on stories of individual clients.

It was now time to raise the flag. Fluttering in the breeze, the tricolour looked down proudly on the school below. Let us close our eyes and imagine. Every child must be able to explore her interests and to discover her own potential. Keeping all children in mind, schools, families and communities must ensure building strong foundations, developing choices for pathways and opportunities for learning. We need to work systematically and persistently, building on what has worked each year, learning from what did not, experimenting with what is needed but perhaps still just out of reach, navigating around obstacles and tracking progress. The school has to be the anchor of community life, leveraging the past, building the present and planning for a better future. If our heads, hearts and hands come together, it is possible that every school on August 15, 2047 will be celebrating like the one we are reading about now.

This article has been written by Dr Rukmini Banerji, CEO, Pratham Education Foundation.

ASER is a nationwide survey that captures the status of children's enrollment and learning outcomes in rural India every year. This means that ASER provides a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the state of education in rural India. This information is essential for policymakers and educators who are working to improve the quality of education in India.

Dr. Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham Education Foundation, talks about how ASER has become more than just a data collection. It has become an experience that connects every Indian to their homeland. This is because ASER is a bottom-up 'social movement' that involves the participation of thousands of volunteers from all over India. ASER has helped to raise awareness about the importance of education and to create a sense of shared responsibility for improving the quality of education in India.

In the podcast, Decoding Impact by Sattva Knowledge Institute, Dr. Banerji, ex-director of ASER Centre, discusses the success of ASER and how it all started.

Hear the full podcast here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5YygvbOQUcBjPhiECEGTwh