PRATHAM

IDEA - INTRODUCTION
1

Pratham is the largest non governmental organisation working to provide quality education to
the underprivileged children of India. Pratham was established in 1994 to provide education to
the children in the slums of Mumbai city. Since then, the organization has grown both in scope
and geographical coverage.
Today we reach out to millions of children living both in rural and urban areas through a range of
interventions. The Pratham team comprises of educationists, development professionals, media
persons, corporates, workers, activists, PhDs, MBAs, CAs, civil servants, bankers, corporate
professionals, consultants, who all bring their experiences and perspectives to the organsiation
and are unified by the common vision of improving the future of our children.
2

All our programs are designed to ensure that:

1. Enrollment in schools increases
2. Learning in schools and communities increases
3. The education net reaches children who are unable to attend school
4. Models are replicated and scaled up to serve large numbers of children to achieve a large
scale impact.

Pratham firmly believes in working with the government to bring about large scale change and
therefore our programs are aimed at supplementing rather than replacing governmental efforts.
We have signed Memorandums of Understanding with 8 state governments for our flagship
program - Read India and are working in close collaboration with the municipal corporations in
several cities such as Mumbai and Delhi.
We also work with the school systems and communities to plan and implement our programs.
Thousands of volunteers, mainly women, belonging to the same communities as the children
work with us to implement the interventions at the grassroots. These volunteers are mobilised,
trained and monitored by the Pratham team and also provided with Teacher Learning Material
and books developed by Pratham. This not only ensures more effective implementation of our
programs, but also helps build capacities at the grassroots for providing quality education to the
children. Empowerment of women, especially from economically weaker sections of society and
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from minority religious groups is often cited as one of Prathams most significant contributions
to the communities in which it intervenes. These young women benefit not only in terms of
capacity building with regard to additional employable skills like teacher training, managing the
local program/ enterprise, communication etc. but most importantly, confidence building and
increased respect and acceptance in the local community
Pratham has also become a powerful voice in the area of educational reform. The Annual Status
of Education Report (ASER) facilitated by Pratham is referred to by the Central and State
Governments for formulating various plans and policies. Our senior team leaders are members of
important policy making bodies both at the Central and State levels, including the Governing
Council of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
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Vision & Mission

Prathams mission is to ensure Every Child in School and Learning Well .

The organization is founded on the firm belief that education is the
fundamental right of every child and no child should be deprived of
this basic right simply because he/she does not have access to it or
does not have the resources to realize his/her dreams.
The principal focus of our programs is to ensure quantum and visible
improvement in the enrolment and learning levels of the
underprivileged children.
The key principles which have guided the evolution of our programs over the years are:
1. Generating a societal mission is a necessary means of achieving the broad goal of
universal pre-school and primary school education
2. Creating an impact on a large scale is essential to bring about a perceptible change
3. Creating low cost models is critical to ensure sustainability and replicability of
interventions.
We believe in a societal mission where citizens come together to ensure that Indias children
have a better future. The organization is based on a triangular partnership: the government,
thecorporate sector and the citizens. In many cities, the corporate leaders have taken the lead,
the government has responded by opening its schools and sharing its facilities, and the
community volunteers, mostly young enthusiastic women from slums, help implement the
Pratham programs. Pratham also firmly believes in working with the government to bring about
large scale and rapid changes. The programs therefore aim to supplement and not supplant the
governmental efforts in univeralising primary education.
We have constantly been guided by the belief that solutions to fill the gaps in the education
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system should be available even in the remotest part of the country from the toughest terrains,
to violence affected regions. These models should be low-cost so that they can be implemented
anywhere and scaled up to achieve large scale impact. We have demonstrated through our
various programs that large scale mobilization around the issue of learning is not only possible,
but also essential in order to address the overall issue of education in the country.
15 years after its formation, the Pratham movement has become a pan-Indian movement
reaching millions of children across 19 states. 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.
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IDEA THE HISTORY

Unlike most other NGOs which are born out of the enterprise of only a few individuals, Pratham
was established as a Public Charitable Trust in 1994 by the Commissioner of the Municipal
Corporation of Greater Mumbai, UNICEF and several prominent citizens of the country. Over
the years, the network has been expanded to various other cities where like minded people
wanted to replicate the Pratham experience. Central to this massive expansion of Prathams work
has been a whole new way of approaching the education problem in India and a new way of
implementing programs to create a national impact. We outline below the key milestones in
Prathams journey.
The Initial Years
Pratham began its operations by providing pre-school education to the children in the slums of
Mumbai. Contrary to the general mindset of space being limited, Pratham felt that an ideal space
should not be a pre-condition to providing pre-school education. There was enough space within
each community in temples, local offices, peoples houses etc. Thus volunteers were recruited
from within the communities and trained in early childhood education and encouraged to take
classes in any space available in the communities. They were also provided with teaching
learning material. Soon, the Pratham Balwadis (Pre-school classes) multiplied and were
replicated in various other locations.
Gradually we came into contact with out-of-school children and in-school children who were
lagging behind academically and also were at the risk of dropping out. Many of these were first
generation learners and therefore lacked the required learning support from their families. We
started providing remedial education to these children through the Balsakhi program. The
Bridge classes conducted in the communities targeted out-of-school children and aimed at
bringing them to a minimum learning level before mainstreaming them into schools.
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Between 1999 and 2001, we expanded our work to cover 19 cities with similar models. In
addition we began working with child labour through our outreach program. In 2000 Pratham
was awarded the Global Development Network Award, sponsored by the World Bank /
Government of Japan, where Pratham was named as one of the top three"most innovative
development projects.
The Birth of the Learn to Read Technique and the shift to the Area Approach
By 2002-3, Pratham initiatives in most locations had worked out strategies on scale for direct
delivery of pre-school education, school readiness programs and remedial education.
In 2002-03 two major changes occurred that had a significant impact on our programs:
The Area Approach: We adopted the area approach for the delivery of our programs in urban
areas. The area approach was designed to turn communities around so that the first step for
the universalization of elementary education could be firmly taken. In this approach an entire
community or basti is selected for the interventions. This is better than a scattered approach
where it is difficult to track children who drop out from the programs. In the area approach the
only way a child may drop out is if he or she leaves the community and migrates elsewhere. Low
income slum pockets or villages of approximately 250 to 300 households are demarcated. This
cluster is called a basti. Often such pockets are contiguous to each other so that targeted
stretches of slums achieve goals of every child going to school and every child acquiring basic
literacy numeracy skills within a time bound manner. Today, we are working in 4000 such bastis
in 43 cities.
Learn to Read: through our experience with the learning support programs, we learnt that the
average period of contact available with children requiring additional help was not more than 2-3
months. This necessitated the development of an alternative model/technique where a short term
contact could significantly impact the learning levels of children. There was a thought that Isnt
there a magic wand that will help us change the learning status of a child almost overnight?
Prathams Learn to Read (L2R) technique was thus born. L2R was an accelerated learning
technique targeted at teaching both in-school and out-of-school children how to read in 4- 8
weeks. It was conceptualized as a non-linear method where the children were exposed to
multiple stimuli to help improve their learning levels. The first innovation resulting from these
efforts to develop this technique was to abandon the sequential method of learning. Instead,
Pratham came up with an integrated activity as it found that if four types of class activities (say
something; do something; read something and write something) are integrated together, learning
was rapid. The technique was based on the principle that when children were engaged in a
variety of activities which have implicit interconnections, they make the interconnections and
these snowball into a larger skill. This was learning by doing in action.
Pilots demonstrated that the accelerated technique was capable of increasing the learning levels

of 84% children in less than 8 weeks. Those who did not know even letters of the alphabet were
reading sentences haltingly and those who could read words only with difficulty but could not
read sentences fluently graduated to good reading. The magic wand demonstrated that learning
can be improved in a short span of time using a low cost model which was replicable on a
national scale.
The Annual Status of Education Report(ASER)
As Pratham progressed in its journey, it found it necessary to quantify the problems of education
in a manner that could lead to focused action. While government surveys provided enrollment
data, they were hardly any surveys providing information on the quality of education. Also the
government data on enrollment was not independently verified and often not published. Pratham
felt that citizens who were being levied a 2% (now 3%) cess on education since 2004 deserved to
know if their money was being used effectively and efficiently. Measuring the ASER (asermeans
impact in Hindi) of their money was central to the ASER effort. But the primary objective was to
create awareness and inform citizens of the learning levels of their children. A massive voluntary
effort was thus set up across the country to conduct a household survey which measured various
basic and simple parameters of enrollment, facilities, and learning. This survey, which covers
over 16,000 households and over 700,000 children between October and November each year in
95% of the rural districts of India, is reported in the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER)
in the following January .
Read India
ASER 2005 and 2006 findings revealed that in spite of having been in school for over 2-5 years,
a significant percentage of school children could not read, write or do basic arithmetic. Findings
of ASER 2005, revealed for example, that only 15% of children in Std II and 25% in Std III
could read a class 1 text. Likewise, only 17% children in Std II and 32% in Std III could solve
subtraction problems. ASER 2006 continued to point to the gaps in the learning levels of the
children. To address this problem in January 2007, Pratham launched the Read India campaign to
help all of Indias children aged 6-14 years learn to read, write, and do basic arithmetic. Instead
of relying on governments to ask for peoples participation, this movement talks of peoples
initiative and governments participation. The campaign is being implemented in 350 districts
(600 in India) across 19 states in the country with the help of thousands of volunteers and the
government school system. It has already reached 21 million children. More than 350,000
volunteers have been mobilized and 400,000 teachers and government officials have been
trained. In most states where the Read India campaign has been implemented, there has been a
significant improvement in the learning levels of the children.
Today the organization continues to expand both geographically and in terms of the scope of
work it undertakes. Several new programs have been introduced which include the computer
aided literacy program, English program, Pratham Council for Vulnerable children and the
Skilling Initiative.

IDEA - THE IMPLEMENTATION

5

Organizational Structure

The Board

Mr. Ajay G. Piramal, Piramal Group

Mr. Narayanan Vaghul, Former Chairman, ICICI Bank Ltd.
Mr. Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries.
Mr. Rajat Kumar Gupta, McKinsey & Company
Mr. Vijay Goradia, Vinmar Group of Companies, USA
Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla , Aditya Birla Group
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Mr. Sanjay Nayar, Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts (KKR)

Mr. Sunny Varkey, GEMS Education
Mr. Gunit Chadha, Deutsche Bank
Mr. Ramesh Mangaleswaran, McKinsey & Company.
Mr. Sanjay Motwani, Sansar Capital
Mr. Shahid Mahdi, Former Vice Chancelor Jamia Milia University
Mr. Arvind Sagar,
Ms. Reita Gadkari
Mr. Atul Varadhachary,
Mr. Sharad Kale
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The Pratham team comprises of people from different walks of life who have all come together
with their varied experiences to work towards this one mission. The team includes people from
diverse backgrounds including also social workers, activists, PhDs, MBAs, CAs, civil servants,
bankers, corporate professionals, consultants, academicians etc.
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PRATHAM SUPPORTERS

Pratham is a tripartite partnership between the government, citizens and corporates. Our work is
supported by several national and international corporates like ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries,
CITI Group, Johnson & Johnson, McKinsey & Co., IBM, Boeing International, Piramal Group,
BILT, British Gas, CSFB, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, etc., and multilateral foundations
like UNICEF, World Bank, UNDP, UNESCO, American India Foundation and Paul Hamlyn
Foundation.
Our key supporters include:

The Hewlett Foundation has made a grant of $9.1 million grant to support Read India in 100
districts over 3 years.

Google.org supported ASER with a $2 million grant.

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation supports the program in the HKPR zone of Mumbai and
provides partial support to the program in Delhi.

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GE Foundation has been a strong supporter of our urban programs.

Supports the programs in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan through a grant of 2.9 million
Euros. They also provide core funding for our programs.

Douglas Marshall Foundation has contributed to Read India and our summer camps

Pratham supporters also include:

Wockhardt, United Way, Citibank, Niramaya, IBM, IJM, ICICI, Barclays, ArtVenture, INGVysya
Foundation, Bilt, Johnson and Johnson, GSK and many others.
Pratham also has a strong presence internationally where our overseas chapters in the US, UK,
UAE and Germany help mobilize funds.

VARIOUS PROGRAMMES UNDER PRATHAM

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Direct Programs

Direct programs comprise of focused interventions, where the Pratham team directly plans,
conducts and monitors the programs. The programs are typically conducted within the
community spaces in peoples houses, temples, open spaces etc. The instructors, mainly
women, belong to same the community where the program is being conducted. They are
mobilized and trained by the Pratham team. Pratham also provides teacher learning material and
regularly monitors the progress of the program. Each instructor receives a nominal monthly
allowance for the work that they undertake.
Prathams direct programs have traditionally been conducted in the urban areas to increase the
enrollment and learning levels of children living in urban slums. At the beginning of every
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academic year, Pratham undertakes a survey in each slum/basti it works in across the country.
Four key questions are asked in the survey each year:
Does every child have pre-school education?
Does every child go to school?

Does every child know reading, writing, and arithmetic?

Do children have access to books?

Based on the results, our team in each area generates a community profile and plans for
programs to address gaps that exist in the communities. Prioritization based on availability of
funds and local situation drives the actual program implementation.
The direct program model has been evolving over the years. From scattered units of activity in
urban areas, we shifted to an area approach in 2003, where focused interventions are undertaken
in a defined geography of a slum pocket or village comprising of about 250,000 households. This
defined geographical area is called abasti. This approach helps ensure that every child in the
basti is in school and learning. In 2007-08, Pratham also undertook a GPS mapping of the city
schools to understand the status of schooling in 15 different cities. The information will be used
to support the urban programs.
The programs conducted under the direct intervention approach include:
Balwadis (pre-school education)
Learning support programs.

Libraries

Mainstreaming of out of school children.

Currently the direct programs in most cities are being consolidated as Urban learning Centres.
The learning centres will Conduct classes for the children in the immediate vicinity to provide
full year learning support focusing on their school curriculum. The centres will be in dedicated
rented spaces of 2-3 rooms in the community where the classes will run from morning to
evening to provide a more professional atmosphere for the teachers and a clean, enabling
environment for the students.
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Balwadi - Providing Pre-school education

The Balwadis provide pre-school education to children in the age group of 3-5 years. These are
run in urban areas where children from low-income families do not have access to an anganwadi
center run by the government or any other pre-school facility run by the private sector including
other NGOs.
The Balwadis are run in the community itself - in temples, under the tree, in the house of the
instructor or of another community member. No rent is paid for the space in which the Balwadi is
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run and the location is always close to the childs home.

Approximately 20-25 children gather in the class every day for about 3-4 hours and learn to
engage with numbers, shapes, colours, stories, poems and songs. The teacher belongs to the same
community as the children. She is identified and trained in early childhood care and education by
the Pratham team and also provided with teacher learning material. The Pratham team monitors
the progress of the Balwadi on a regular basis.
The Balwadi classes build the social, emotional, motor and cognitive skills of the children,
thereby preparing them to adjust to the school atmosphere. This also helps tackle the problem of
retention and achievement at a nascent stage. The Balwadis provide spaces for these young
children to collect and spend time in productive activities. Since, most of their parents are
illiterate and unable to help their children in early childhood education, the Balwadis are seen as
big help.
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Learning Support Classes

The Learning support classes build and strengthen the reading, writing and arithmetic skills of
children of age 6 and above. The classes target both out-of-school children and in-school
children who are unable to undertake age and grade specific reading, writing and arithmetic. We
run three types of learning support classes, both in the communities and in the schools:
Shishuvachan: This program is run for children in the 4-6 year age group who are attending
other balwadis and anganwadis. It seeks to build their language and numeric skills to equip them
to enter school. It is a five month program and runs from November to March every year.
Learn to Read (L2R) Classes: This is a 8 week program targeted at children who are unable to
read simple texts fluently or do basic arithmetic confidently.
L2R is an accelerated learning technique targeted at teaching children how to read and do basic
arithmetic in 4- 8 weeks. The technique does not follow the traditional sequential method of
learning. Instead, four types of class activities (say something; do something; read something
and write something) are integrated together, to make learning rapid. The technique is based on
the principle that when children are engaged in a variety of activities which have implicit
interconnections, they make the interconnections and these snowball into a larger skill.
At the beginning of the program, the children are assessed on their reading and arithmetic levels
and grouped on the basis of their levels of knowledge. All activities are then built from that level
onwards. Once the level of the child is determined, the simple L2R technique is used with each
child to help improve his/her reading and arithmetic levels.
Results conducted before and after the interventions reveal that this accelerated technique is
capable of increasing the learning levels of children in less than 8 weeks. Those who do not
know even letters of the alphabet begin reading sentences haltingly and those who can read
words only with difficulty but cannot read sentences fluently graduate to good reading.
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Read to Learn (R2L): This is an extension of the Learning to Read class. The out-of-school
children are enrolled in these classes as a priority. Once the child has built his/her basic reading
skills, they are taught on how to read with comprehension and express what they have learnt.
The Reading to Learn classes may have two phases. The first phase, R2L1, strengthens reading,
comprehension of school and/or other texts, and writing on ones own. The next phase R2L2,
attempts to ensure that the children complete the basic curricular framework for Grade III as
prescribed by the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT). Those
children who complete the L2R and R2L classes are mainstreamed into schools.
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Library

Pratham libraries provide children from low-income families access to colourful and interesting
books in their own languages as well as in English. In each community that Pratham works in, a
library has been set up either within the house of a community member and/or in the
government school catering to the area. The objective is to ensure that all children in the
communities have access to books that they can read. The program is also important in
reinforcing what children learn at school or in their Pratham classes. Most Indian children do
not possess books of their own and cannot practice their reading skills outside the classroom as
books are not easily available in the neighbourhood.
The libraries are run after school hours. The librarian (who, like all Pratham teachers, is from
the same community) also visits the houses in the community to interact with the children and
their parents and provide them books. She has a register containing information of all the
children (6 14 years) in the community, and tracks the reading habits of the children.
In addition to providing books several fun filled activities such as drawing competitions, craft
classes, quizzes, debates are conducted as part of the library for the children of the
communities. The objective is to make learning fun, encourage creative expression and build
and sustain childrens interest.
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Scholarship Program

In most states, the Std IV/V examination is a milestone as it is the first time that elementary
school children are examined formally. However, as revealed by ASER results, many of these
children are still struggling with elementary reading and airthtmetic and therefore require
additional support.
The government of Maharashtra conducts a centralized merit exam for children in Stds IV and
VII which test their aptitude in language, math and analytical skills.This exam has been made
mandatory for all Std IV and VII students since 2005. In an effort to move beyond basic literacy
and numeric ability and focus on learning excellence, Pratham piloted the scholarship
preparation program in Mumbai in 2007. Classes were held in 25 schools and 54 slum
communities. The pilot showed that the proportion of children coached by Pratham who passed
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was 21% higher than other municipal school going children. Having witnessed the results, over
250 schools in Mumbai invited Pratham to help coach their children for the next year's
examination.
Today, the program is running in several cities of Maharashtra and in Delhi. Regular classes are
conducted in the schools to ensure that children of Std IV/V are equipeed with the skills
required to negotiate the exam thereby impacting their overall learning levels. We aim that 60%
of the children should pass the scholarship/similar competency exam. The focus of the
progranm therefore is on both academic knowledge and the devlopment of logical reasoning.
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Read India

Prathams flagship program, Read India, helps to improve the reading, writing and basic
arithmetic skills of the children in the age group of 6-14 years. Even though India has made
significant strides in improving the enrollment levels of the children, a lot still needs to be done
as far as the learning levels are concerned. Findings of ASER 2005 and 2006 revealed that a
significant percentage of children could not read, write and even do basic arithmetic.
Read India was therefore launched on a national scale in 2007 to help achieve the following
objectives:
All Std I children know at least alphabets & numbers
All Std II children can read at least words & do simple sums

All Std III-V children can at least read simple texts fluently & confidently solve
arithmetic problems

Read India seeks to catalyze existing resources and energize structures to strengthen childrens
learning. The campaign is being executed with the help of school teachers, anganwadi workers
and volunteers, who are mobilized and trained by Pratham teams. While the school teachers
work inside their schools, volunteers and anganwadi workers work with children and their
mothers outside school. Partnerships have been forged with 11 state governments for the
implementation of the program.
Read India has created the largest nationwide impact and is already producing impressive results.
In 2008-09, the campaign reached 33 million children across 19 states. It covered 305,000 out of
the 600,000 villages of India and mobilized 450,000 volunteers. Over 600,000 teachers/ officials/
government workers have been trained. In most states, out of the children who were a part of the
intervention, the proportion of those not able to read alphabets is down to zero. Likewise, the
proportion of children able to read simple sentences is up by almost 20%.
Over the next three years, Read India will move to its next level Read India II which will focus
on higher levels of academic content, focusing on subject specific and grade specific content for
Std V-VIII. The campaign will also assist children aged 14-16 years complete their secondary
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school certification exam by providing them with the required academic support.
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ASER

Facilitated by Pratham, ASER(meaning impact in Hindi) is the largest household survey

undertaken in India by people outside the government. It annually measures the enrollment as
well as the reading and arithmetic levels of children in the age group of 6-14 years.
ASER is carried out by a local organization or institution in each rural district in the country,
using a common set of tools and a common sampling frame. In 2008, ASER reached over
7,04,000 children in 16,198 villages in 564 rural districts in India. More than 32,000 volunteers
from NGOs, colleges and universities, youth and women groups participated in this effort.
The survey is being conducted since 2005 and each year, the entire effort from start to finish
takes only 100 days. The report is released in January every year. The findings are disseminated
widely within government and outside at the national, state, district and village level.
ASER has become an important input in the educational policies of both the Central and State
governments. The findings of the survey have been referred to in the approach paper to the
11th Planning Commission and several state governments use the findings to define their
educational programs each year. Since the last 4 years the report has been released by the
Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Shri Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
In 2007, the ASER centre was established with funding from Google Inc. to institutionalize this
process. The objectives of this centre are to strengthen different aspects of this process and to
build capacity at state and district level individuals and institutions to design and conduct basic
surveys, assessment and analysis activities in education and other social sectors.
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Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children

A large number of working children pose a barrier to our mission of every child in school and
learning well. Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children has been working since 2001 with
vulnerable and working children to help them receive basic education and live a better life.
The Councils programs include prevention, rehabilitation, repatriation, rescue and education of
vulnerable and working children. It is working in 7 states which form a network of the source
states(from which child labour migrates) and the receiving states (where the child labour
migrates to).
The Council also plays a key role in influencing polices related to working children. PCVC has
become a key partner with state governments in drafting official protocol in dealing with
rescued children and advising legislation concerning child labour. In addition, they are working
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on replicable task force models with the government and advocacy and policy changes to
ensure that the cities that they are working in are Child Labour Free.
The PCVC has also set up a number of residential schools to teach children who have been
rescued, but whose circumstances do not allow them to return to their families. There are three
such schools in Mumbai and three in Bihar.
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English Program

The English Program targets children in the age group of 8-14 years and helps build their basic
conversational skills and their ability to read simple texts with comprehension. At the end of
this 8 month program children learn to pronounce alphabets and known words correctly and
build a vocabulary comprising of approximately 750 words and 1000 sentences. They also learn
to ask 15 different types of wh questions (where, what etc).
The program was piloted in 2006-07 and is now being scaled up across both rural and urban
locations across the country. The classes are usually conducted in the community.
English is taught daily to the children for one hour, where 75% time is dedicated to listening
and speaking and 25% on reading. This pattern reverses as the reading ability of a child grows.
Children are encouraged to speak only English. Pre, mid and post tests are conducted to
monitor the progress of the children.
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Computer Aided Literacy

This is a school based program which caters to school going children from 6-18 age group with
about 40% children in secondary school age.
The objective of this program is
1) to impact childrens basic learning levels using IT and
2) to give them relevant IT knowledge and skills.
Through its school based computer labs, this program reaches out to close to 90,000 children
across 7 states. This program also tries to improve schools performance by encouraging them to
adopt various IT solutions like MIS, Database etc and to get teachers to adopt technology
through teacher training. A nominal fee of Rs. 10/25 is charged every month and is reinvested
into the program. Each center serves approximately 500 students where a maximum of 2
children work on each computer. Each child attends the center for two hours each week. The
curriculum includes, software developed by Pratham in local languages that helps build the
reading and math skills of the children.
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Vocational Skills programme

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Pace the Skills Training Program

This program is targeted at the economically disadvantaged youth in the 18-30 year age group.
India has a large percentage of youth who have not been able to complete their formal
education and also do not have the required vocational skills to be gainfully employed.
Prathams Skills Training Program tries to
1) Train youth in market relevant skills such as banking, agriculture, hospitality etc. and
2) Help them start their own businesses.
This program was started in 2005 and currently there are 7 centers across Maharashtra. Over
3500 youth have been trained. Pratham has partnered with Larsen & Turbo to give training in
the construction industry, with Taj Hotels to give training in hospitality industry, with Godrej
Agrovet to give training in Agriculture, with Deutsche Bank to give training in Banking and
Financial Services and is about to start a partnership with Landmark Group for Retail Training.
The program is also training youth in basic foundational skills to make them more employable
& more trainable. Training is also given to youth who are in conflict with the law and are in
prisons. The entrepreneurship support program is in a nascent stage.
22

Early Childhood Care and Education Centre

The ECCE center was set up in 2007 to leverage and institutionalize the experience Pratham
has in early childhood care and education. Over the years, Pratham has been running a
successful Balwadi progam and in this process worked with and trained thousands of volunteers
and pre-school teachers. The center is an attempt to consolidate and share the learning in this
area through an institutional framework. Trainings in early childhood care and education is the
key activity of the resource centre. Trainings are conducted for government and private preschool teachers as well as for volunteers from within the community. Through the collaboration
with the government ICDS to train the Anganwadi workers, the center seeks to strengthen the
government pre-school learning program The center also promotes entrepreneurial effort in the
field of ECCE. In addition, information on ECCE is also provided to mothers and urban and
rural poor so that are empowered with knowledge to improve the education and health of their
children. Centers have been established in Maharashtra, Hyderabad and Allahabad and efforts
are underway to set up additional centers.
23

Pratham Books

Pratham Books, a separate charitable Trust was established in 2001 to provide children from
low income families access to quality books at affordable prices, in their regional languages.
Despite the size of Indias child population, very few Indian regional languages have more than
a thousand titles of childrens books currently available.
21

http://www.pratham.org/M-24-3-Vocational-Skills-programme.aspx

22

http://www.pratham.org/M-25-3-ECCE.aspx

23

http://www.pratham.org/M-26-3-Pratham-Books.aspx

Pratham Books is trying to create a shift in the paradigm for publishing childrens books in
India. The low cost model proves that childrens literature can be attractive and affordable and
therefore more accessible. Since its inception, Pratham Books has published over 130 titles and
shipped 3 million books in over 14 languages.