Pratham Education Foundation (Pratham) is a learning organisation dedicated to the mission of “Every Child in School and Learning Well”. With a history spanning almost 30 years, Pratham’s transformative journey commenced with pre-school initiatives in the urban slums of Mumbai. Over time, Pratham has impacted millions across India by collecting data at scale to reveal the scope of the learning crisis; generating evidence with which to build and test systematic ways of addressing it; and mobilising governments and communities as well as cross-country partnerships to scale impact.
Pratham’s endeavours encompass a diverse array of programs tailored for preschool and elementary school age groups; girls and women, especially school dropouts; and youth seeking vocational and life skills. Through programs covering 25 states, Pratham reaches more than 6 million children and youth annually.
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, the CNN IBN Indian of the Year for Public Service, and the Yidan Prize 2021 for education development.
With the What Works Hub for Global Education, Pratham will undertake a 3-year research study on the durability of foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) at scale in India. The goal is to understand and improve classroom practice at scale via ongoing, fast, practice-relevant research. Using variety of tools and methods, this “what works” study will aim to understand the nuts and bolts of how change in learning happens and how it can be sustained within a large-scale government school system. Uttar Pradesh will be considered as the representative state to showcase findings of this study, which will have national and global significance.