Pratham’s story evolved from the idea of a tripartite societal mission uniting government, businesses, and civil societies or individuals to solve a complex issue on a massive scale. The idea was born in Unicef’s Mumbai (then Bombay) office with the belief that if these three groups work together to solve the problems of the education sector, the model could be replicated anywhere in India.

The First Steps

After sharing the idea with many leading individuals, the Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai, Sharad Kale, presided over a meeting of former administrators, businesspersons and socially minded individuals in his chambers along with Kumud Bansal, the Secretary of Education of Maharashtra and the State Representative of Unicef, Maharashtra, Richard Bridle. The meeting, held in late 1993, concluded with the decision to set up a charitable trust called Pratham, a word that meant primary, priority or first.

S P Godrej, the reputed businessperson and philanthropist, was nominated Chairperson and Madhav Chavan was appointed Executive Secretary. Farida Lambay would support the Executive Secretary and the two became known as the Co-founders of Pratham.

The Pratham Mumbai Education Initiative Trust was officially registered on January 11, 1995, but the work of the Trust had already begun with a team of 10 young staff members. Half the team were alumni of the College of Social Work Nirmala Niketan where Farida Lambay was a faculty member and the other half were from CORO (Committee of Resource Organisations), an adult literacy organisation set up by Madhav Chavan half a decade ago.

Pratham’s DNA of working frugally on a massive scale was formed in its early days when the young team embarked upon a massive survey of school facilities with the help of volunteer physicians. By early 1995, the team launched its community-based preschool program, which was a combination of voluntarism and enterprise. Other NGOs and educational institutions provided valuable training resources.

In 1996, N. Vaghul, the then Chairperson of ICICI, became the Chairperson of Pratham Mumbai. Under his leadership, the work and vision on scale got the much-deserved support to grow tremendously. N. Vaghul became a true champion of Pratham in the corporate world until his passing in 2024.

The Indian diaspora in the US, led by Vijay Goradia and his team, created Pratham USA in 1999. This movement to support Pratham was taken to the UK by Viral Acharya in 2003. Pratham Sweden was founded by Ingrid Eelde Koivisto in 2016.

Expansion and Models

The Municipal Corporation in Mumbai, impressed with the pace and scale of work, invited Pratham to work inside its schools. In 1996, Pratham launched its first remedial education Balsakhi (children’s friend) program, a precursor to its now well-known Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) methodology. A variety of urban Bridge Course models, including Hobby Classes and Umbrella Classes, to reach out-of-school children to prepare them for school enrollment were also set up simultaneously. These Bridge Courses later developed into the Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children projects focusing on rescue, rehabilitation and prevention of child labour.

Pratham’s organisational model and its programmatic solutions were replicated in other urban centres after 1998. The realisation that almost 50% of children in Grade 5 could not read or solve simple math problems led Pratham to become a pedagogical innovator to solve a problem that existed on a gigantic scale. The Learning to Read (L2R) method, innovated in 2002, gave rise to a simple assessment tool as a necessity of community-based L2R programs. This was a critical step in the generation of the citizen-led assessment program – the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) - that has been annually reporting on the status of education across rural India since 2005. This transformed an urban network of trusts into a predominantly rural nationwide organisation. The citizen-led assessment was later replicated in many South Asian, African and Latin American countries.

Innovation and Programs

Pratham developed digital interventions as early as 1998 and is now experimenting with hybrid learning and use of Artificial Intelligence. In 2005, experiments began with vocational training of youth in order to compensate volunteers in the L2R program. But the Vocational Training Program developed its own momentum and today Pratham trains on an average over 40,000 youth annually, half of them women, and places 85% trainees in jobs. Second Chance, a women’s education program started in 2011, has helped more than 50,000 girls and women to complete their high school since its inception.

Pratham’s innovative solutions continue to evolve through efforts to make them more effective and efficient. New issues are addressed in different regions and domains. Pratham is an organically learning organisation.

The Pratham movement started in Mumbai and spread all over India. It later spread to a large portion of the developing world. It started as a children’s literacy program and has grown to also become a youth skilling and livelihood program.

Pratham has consistently shown that it is always looking ahead to identify emerging needs, whether in the field of children’s education or youth skilling. It has also demonstrated the ability to be localised, nimble, and frugal. With the new National Education Policy in place, Pratham has leveraged its past experiences to move forward and align with the opportunities the policy has created.

Today, Pratham reaches 6 million children and youth across 25 states annually. By fostering partnerships with governments, corporates, and communities, Pratham has renewed its mission to prepare children, youth, women, and communities for the future while supporting the ecosystem that nurtures lifelong learning. Pratham is now aspiring to help communities and schools become future- ready.