Stir education India

About STIR Education

Founded in 2012, STIR Education is a fast-growing, fast-paced international education NGO, headquartered in London and currently operating in India and Uganda. We are supported by 18 of the world’s leading foundations and development agencies, including DFID, USAID, Mastercard, MacArthur, Ikea Foundation, Dubai Cares and UBS Optimus.

STIR sees teachers as the solution, not the problem, in addressing the global learning crisis that affects 250 million children in developing countries today. STIR’s core mission is to partner with governments to ignite and sustain teacher intrinsic motivation. We do this in order to improve classroom practice and student learning, and in the process boost financial efficiency for education systems.

At the core of our approach is the building of teacher networks: local, ongoing communities of practice. These networks meet physically once a month, and a typical network consists of 30 teachers across 10 or more local schools. Teachers go through an initial two-year structured development journey where they gain exposure to key teaching principles and are supported to make tangible change in their classrooms. The networks continue after the two years and provide a mechanism for teachers to improve in other areas. We form a partnership with an education system (a state or country) for a period of approximately five years, during which existing officials in the system are closely trained and supported to run the teacher networks.

In its fifth year of operations STIR is working with 27,000 teachers and 1.1 million children. We have grown into a vibrant team of over 100 full time staff working across our offices in London, Kampala and New Delhi, Lucknow and Bangalore. This cross cultural team has a strong mix of education, business and social entrepreneurship experience – from founding Teaching Leaders; to former employees of Teach First, Teach for India, Google, J-PAL, Gandhi Fellowship, Booz & Co, Citibank, Nomura and Tech Mahindra.

STIR has a unique set of values that guides its work:

- We don’t have all the answers upfront.

- Instead, we empower people: with high expectations and support, we'll find the answers together. 

- We’ll continually listen, reflect, learn and improve – and lead through whatever obstacles come our way.  

- We’re united by a shared belief, passion and vision – which we’ll build, achieve and grow together. 

For more information about STIR and our mission please visit www.stireducation.org