Who We Are

Established in 1995 to provide education to children in Mumbai slums, Pratham (which means “first” in Sanskrit) is now one of the largest and most successful non-governmental education organizations in India.

Working in collaboration with governments, communities, parents, teachers, and volunteers, we focus on innovative interventions to address gaps in the education system. The clarity of our mission—“every child in school and learning well”—drives our focus to make an impact on the lives of India’s children and extends from our leadership to our team in the field.

What We Do

Develop Innovative Programs – Pratham uses outcome-driven programs that reconfigure teaching methodologies and challenge ineffective learning mechanisms. Our strategies focus on results, accountability and continuous learning and improvement.

Build Scalable Models – Pratham’s low-cost learning models are rigorously tested and evaluated so they can be easily replicated on a larger scale to provide quality education to every child.

Advocate Change – Pratham’s willingness to take risks, adapt to changing circumstances and look beyond our programs gives us the leverage to create broader change. We amplify our impact by freely sharing information with other nonprofits and using our findings to advocate for large-scale policy changes.

Inspire Action – We engage parents, teachers and government to make learning a community effort. Local volunteers are vetted, trained and monitored to help implement learning interventions at the grassroots level using Pratham’s high-quality teaching materials.

Where We Work

With operations in 21 of India’s 29 states, Pratham reaches millions of children and youth each year, from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu.  Our methods have also spread beyond India’s borders through ASER, which has inspired parallel citizen-led assessments of children’s learning in fourteen countries and TaRL Africa.