Pratham

Pratham was founded in 1995, to provide pre-school education to children in Mumbai slums. Over the last 20 years Pratham has grown to be India’s largest NGO working to provide quality education to underprivileged youth and children in over 21 states and union territories across the country, with a range of interventions.

Our programs are designed to address a gamut of educational problems – pre-school education, learning support to both in-school and out of school children, mainstreaming of out-of-school children, computer literacy, vocational training for youth and special programs for vulnerable and working children.  

Pratham’s main programs are 1) Read India which is Pratham’s flagship program working in urban and rural areas to strengthen basics of literacy and numeracy of children between the age of 3 to 14 through innovative teaching learning techniques. 2) The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), a citizen-led assessment of children’s basic learning outcomes for children in the age group 5 to 16. This assessment model has been adapted for use in several African countries and in Pakistan. 3) Pratham Open School of Education (POSE), launched as a pilot program in 2011, focuses on helping youth, especially girls who have dropped out of school to complete their secondary school certification. The program is now increasingly focusing on in-school students to help address challenges in Upper Primary learning through Pratham Supported Schools (PSS) program. 4) Pratham Institute is the vocational training arm of Pratham and works with rural and semi-urban unemployed and underemployed youth to provide them with access to training to reach employability, certification of skills, and provision of subsequent employment or entrepreneurship opportunities. 

Pratham is a widely recognized organization, having received notable awards such as the WISE Prize for Innovation, Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Henry R Kravis Prize in Leadership and the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year for Public Service. For more details, refer to www.pratham.org