Azim Premji Foundation motivates you to immerse yourself from your own experience to appreciate a continuous and experiential learning process. Since the beginning of my professional journey, I have been given challenging opportunities to work with teachers and develop understanding of education, school and society. Azim Premji Foundation work culture has also influenced my personal growth immensely and encouraged me to look deeper in every aspect of education to contribute constructively for its betterment.
Antara Panda
Associate Batch 2018
The Associate program has proved to be the best platform for me as an employee. The full one year journey has been a journey of learning. This program has played a very important part in development of my personal life as well, in addition to my career. Being a student of Science, developing my skills in basics of Language and Mathematics has been very interesting. The democratic setup of learning and performance has been a new experience for me.
Pritam Gupta
Associate Batch 2015
The foundation is not just a career option, it is one of the fewest organization which allows you to grow not only as a professional but also as an individual. The journey has been amazing, and I take pride to be associated with such a profession and able to contribute for such noble cause.
Praveen Uniyal
Associate Batch 2016
Foundation gives ample opportunities to explore Education, primarily the public education system and its teachers, being utterly integral to the system. This happens through field experiences, internal capacity enhancement workshops and formal or informal discussions. The values, vision and work culture enable a conducive environment of learning to grow and evolve with optimism towards change while being critically reflective and thus contributing to teacher professional development.
Kalpana Bisht
Associate Batch 2018
The year in the foundation has been a fertile ground to test what we have read and learnt as theory in our classrooms. It gives ample opportunities to explore, think and reflect on not only education but each and every aspect that we see in the society.
Alok Singh
Associate Batch 2016
The journey of the Associate program gave me a good exposure to the kind of efforts being made in different contexts for improving the quality of education in our country.
Azim Premji Foundation is a not-for profit organisation that has been working since 2000 with the elementary education system in rural government schools.
The Foundation began by implementing various programmes to improve educational quality across the country. By 2010 however it became clear that working on a “project” mode was inadequate and it takes continuous effort over many decades for any deep-rooted change to happen. This can only be achieved by establishing “institutions” which are embedded in the local context and can collaborate with local government structures. Thus the idea of setting up District Institutes in field locations came into being.
The District Institutes work in collaboration with state governments to engage with teachers, school leaders, teacher educators and other education officials.
The range of work involves efforts to:
improve the quality of processes and practices within schools,
facilitate creative approaches to teaching and learning through workshops, teacher forums, seminars, melas, etc.
build professional networks of teachers and head teachers and
reform school curriculum, teacher-education curriculum and related issues of education policy.
The Foundation has also set up demonstration schools in Barmer, Bengaluru, Dhamtari, Kalaburgi, Sirohi, Tonk, Uttarkashi and Udham Singh Nagar and Yadgir to provide quality free education to the local community, at costs and constraints similar to that of rural government schools.
Today, the Foundation with 1700+ employees has field institutes in 48+ districts across 6 states and 1 union territory (Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Puducherry).
Azim Premji Foundation includes these Operating Units:
Field Institutes, our network of District Institutes and affiliated Schools that currently work to improve public education system in India;
Philanthropy, the grants organization, so far referred to as Azim Premji Philanthropy that provides financial support through multi-year grants to not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) who serve the most vulnerable in our society
University in Bengaluru, set up in 2010, to run teaching programs and conduct research to contribute to the social sector in India, and to be an exemplar higher education institution – with inclusion and quality
History
Having successfully built Wipro to be a business leader, Azim Premjifelt the need to contribute to a social cause and address the various developmental challenges facing the country. Dileep Ranjekar agreed to assist him with the initial work of setting up a Foundation.
Discussions between them on the various developmental issues Wipro could work on, led to the ‘White Paper on Charity’ (alternatively titled ‘The Social Work Plan of Wipro Corporation’) on November 24, 1999. The note identified education, nutrition, healthcare and some initiatives in governance as possible areas of work. Through subsequent discussions, primary education was narrowed down as the Foundation’s focus of work because it was a critical factor that significantly impacted other issues in the country.
The Azim Premji Foundation India Private Limited, was registered in February 2000. Later it was re-registered as the ‘Azim Premji Foundation’ on 9th March 2001 under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act of 1956. The Azim Premji Foundation was to be funded solely by Azim Premji by way of transfer of his personal shares to the Foundation. The objective of the funding was to facilitate universalisation of primary education rather than serve as a constraint in achieving it. The Foundation began its work in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in 2001 where the state leadership and education departments were supportive of its mandate.
This history of the Foundation in the last 21 years can be divided into three major phases. The first phase was from 2001-2002, the second from 2002-2009 and the third is the current phase from 2009 onwards till now. In the first phase a decision was taken to work in the area of public education on the issues of equity and quality. It was also decided that the Foundation would be an operating entity. During the second phase which was from 2002-2009 the Foundation worked intensively in collaboration with state governments across multiple states in the country. The range of work included assessment, curriculum reform, school textbook development, policy and capacity development of teachers and education functionaries. Towards the end of the second phase a conviction grew within the organisation that it had to commit to school education in a more permanent and sustainable manner.
The learnings from the seven years of working on the ground were consolidated to form the organizing principles of the current entity. The first was that if education has to fulfill its transformative power to society then it has to be a constant and continuous endeavor. Secondly, that while there is a universality to the knowledge and principles of school education, it must be brought to life in a deeply contextual manner. The third principle was that in order to attain systemic improvement it is necessary to work on all aspects of education (teacher education, curriculum, assessment, etcetera); all levels of education (early childhood, primary and secondary school, higher secondary and higher education and research in Universities) and with all stakeholders (with the school, the communities and the different levels of the education system from block to district to state).
The most important implication of the learnings from this phase was that the work of the Foundation had to be organized into institutions since institutions are permanent in nature. In concrete terms, this meant setting up district level institutions which will work on the ground and state level institutions that will work with the state on school education.
During this phase it also became evident that there was a great shortage of talent in the education sector in areas such as curriculum development, assessment reform or teacher education. There was a requirement for a number of Masters level and Ph.D. level programmes in school education. In keeping with the principle of establishing institutions, the Azim Premji University was set up by the passing of the Azim Premji University Act by the Karnataka State legislature in 2010.
The mandate of the University is not limited to school education. It includes other allied fields such as livelihoods, health, governance, and sustainability which contribute to human development as a whole. The University’s purpose is to prepare education and development sector professionals who can contribute to a just equitable and humane society.
In 2014, the Foundation built a third significant thrust to its work by setting up the Azim Premji Philanthropy (now referred to as the Philanthropy). It is a grants organization which provides financial support through multi-year grants to not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) who work for the most disadvantaged and marginalized people in our society.
Through the grants, the Philanthropy supports not-for-profit organizations to work for the wellbeing of vulnerable groups. These include urban poor (homeless, manual scavengers, rag pickers, migrant workers, elderly), people with disability, survivors of gender violence, adolescents at risk, children in need of care, marginal farmers, landless labourers and tribal communities. To these vulnerable groups, the grants offer immediate care, access to essential services, and the possibility of a dignified future.
The Philanthropy also engages in systematic collaboration with State Governments and not-for-profit organizations to address large scale humanitarian and development challenges through primarily a governance lens. Illustratively, reducing child malnutrition, offering legal access to under-trials, strengthening local democratic institutions, welfare delivery, rescuing lost, runaway or trafficked children at major railway junctions and improving livelihoods of small farmers through agro-ecological farming practices. In this space, the grants build capacity of stakeholders, strengthen existing Government service delivery systems in addition to providing access to immediate care and services for the vulnerable.
The Philanthropy is deeply committed to the values of fraternity, plurality and diversity enshrined in our constitution. It provides fellowship grants to not-for-profit organisations to support individuals and groups who further these constitutional values through their work with vulnerable communities. The Philanthropy also engages closely with the youth of the country, building their perspectives on constitutional values for socially relevant action and to become responsible citizens.
Recently, the Philanthropy has been engaging with community based organizations and early stage not-for-profit organizations to strengthen their leadership, governance, processes and systems.
Major Initiatives (2001- Present)
To know more about past programmes click on the titles.
In response to the perceived need for computer-based education both by the Government of Karnataka and the Foundation, ‘The Community Learning Centres (CLCs) Initiative’ was started. The aim of the programme was application of technology in education for self-paced, interactive and experiential learning and attracting children to school. A CLC was a room in a government elementary school where about five to eight computers were placed. Efforts were also made to source and generate locally relevant content that could be used on the computers. It eventually became the Computer Aided Learning Programme (CALP) covering 16,000 schools in 13 states.
The Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP) was launched in August 2002 in North-East Karnataka. It focused on mainstreaming out-of-school children into formal government schools by assisting them to learn the skills appropriate to the grade into which they were mainstreamed.
The Learning Guarantee Programme (LGP) was launched in November 2002 in Karnataka. The programme began with the objective of identifying and rewarding outstanding schools that were achieving expected learning competencies, with a view to motivating other schools to emulate their practices. It soon became the flagship programme of the organization and between 2004 and 2005, LGP was launched in the four Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Rajasthan covering19 Districts and reaching more than 3000 schools in Uttarakhand and 46000 schools in Karnataka.
The Child Friendly Schools Initiative comprised a series of quality initiatives to ensure that all children come to school, complete five years of schooling and learn during their time at school. The programme was rolled out in the middle of 2004 in the Shorapur block of Yadgir district in North-East Karnataka and in Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh. In 2006 the programme had to be terminated in Chitoor due to various challenges. While the programme expanded to 336 schools in Shorapur block. This was a holistic programme which covered all relevant stakeholders (teachers, community members, students, and educational functionaries), and a wide range of domains (classroom processes, out of classroom processes, different perspectives on learning, teacher professional development, monitoring and support, curricular and related activities). The programme was implemented as a tripartite partnership between the state government, the Foundation and UNICEF.
The Policy Planning Unit (PPU) was a joint initiative between the Government of Karnataka and the Azim Premji Foundation to assist the Department of Public Instruction to build administrative and technical capabilities in the officials in the department, enhance community participation in schools, document academic processes and practices for learning. Positioned as an advisory body or a ‘think tank’, the unit was not only intended to work ‘with’ the Government but also work ‘within’ the Government. Policy Planning Unit conducted and coordinated research studies, provided ongoing support to Government of Karnataka, initiated capacity building efforts in IT and education management and also created booklets in the local language on how management principles can be applied to address the needs of the education department.
APRESt was a research study to investigate the effectiveness of various policy options to improve the quality of primary education in rural government schools in Andhra Pradesh. The various partners of the study included the government of Andhra Pradesh, the Azim Premji Foundation, Educational Initiatives, Venkatesh Sundararaman (World Bank representative) and Karthik Muralidharan (Research Consultant). The research study was intended to understand the relative impact of input-based and incentive-based education policies on student learning outcomes using the methodology of a randomized evaluation.
The Karnataka State Trainers’ Collective (KSTC), an NGO with state-wide presence was invited by the Department of Public Instruction to evolve a mechanism for effective community participation to achieve quality education in rural government primary schools. This came to be known as ‘Namma Shale’, literally ‘My School’ in Kannada and the Azim Premji Foundation agreed to support the work through professional, technical, and financial assistance. The scope of the programme was limited to 73 villages of 4 clusters from each of these districts - Karwar, Davangere, Yadgir and Mysore. The basic premise of the programme was that only when the key stakeholder institutions such as the anganwadi, the SDMC, the gram panchayat and the school were strengthened; individually, in terms of democratic participation and decision-making; and collectively, in terms of establishing accountability towards each other; would the goal of quality education be achieved in the village.
Institutional Capacity Development was conceived as a project with the overarching goal of bringing about systemic change that improved school performance by working at the level of the school as well as at the level of other supporting institutions (academic, administrative and community). A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed with the Government of Karnataka in November 2009 to implement the ICD project in Mandya district, Karnataka.
The team identified eight types of institutions which took care of a significantly large part of the academic, administrative and service delivery activity of the education department:
Schools, the final unit responsible for delivery of teaching-learning
Three academic institutions (at District, Block, Cluster levels), responsible for teacher preparation, research & development and academic support
Three administrative institutions (at District, Block, Cluster levels) responsible for oversight and logistics support
State Councils of Education Research & Training (SCERTs) responsible for curriculum, norms for classroom practices, education technology and research, training & development.
The Foundation had identified a critical need for providing education to the children of migrant labour and began a dialogue with builders for support in running schools at construction sites. This resulted in the first schools for children of migrant labour being set up - ‘Windmills’ was started in February 2007 at Whitefield, Bangalore in partnership with Total Environment Builders and ‘Epsilon’ was set up in June 2007 at Yemlur, Bangalore. All the running costs of schools were shared equally between the builder and the Foundation. Since the inception of the programme, nearly 180 children have been mainstreamed into nearby government schools. Another 245 children have joined government schools in their native village.
Namma Shale Plus programme is a community owned integrated quality education model with the overarching goal of strengthening leadership qualities of head teachers, improving the classroom performance of teachers, encouraging community participation in school management and development, and bringing about institutionalization of community based school management system under the Panchayati Raj Institutions. Based on the pilot programme in four clusters representing four different geographical regions within Karnataka, the programme has been redesigned with the focus on community involvement and teaching-learning aspects. This is being implemented in 15 backward clusters of Gulbarga, Raichur and Yadgir (covering 181 schools).
The Educational Leadership Development programme (ELDP) started off as Management Development Programme (MDP), which was an attempt by the Policy Planning Unit (PPU) to work on the individual Education Leadership and Management capacities in the education department of Karnataka. The initial programme was funded by the World Bank and consisted of two offerings:
1. a strategic management training for the department seniors.
2. an offering for officers at district and block levels to prepare them as ‘master trainers’ called Management Development Facilitators (MDFs).
ELDP – 1: District based MDP for block and cluster officials
The certified Management Development Facilitators (MDFs) carried out Education Leadership Development Programme at district level to reach out to functionaries at the operation level, beginning from BRPs, CRPs, ECOs, IERTs throughout Karnataka. Through this programme 2836 BRPs, CRPs, ECOs and IERTs in 20 districts of Karnataka have undergone Education Leadership Development Programme (ELDP) by carrying out Quality Improvement Projects (QIPs). The programme covers the following areas:
1. Education Perspectives
2. Stakeholder participation
3. Quality tools
4. People Management
5. Project planning and implementation
ELDP – 2: Creation of additional educational leadership departmental facilitators (ELDFs) to cover CRPS, BRPs, ECOs, IERTs throughout Karnataka
The Education Leadership Development Programme – 2 envisaged developing 200 ELDFs in the entire state. It is expected that at least 100 of them will get certified as ELDFs, thus addressing existing skews in uniform ELDP coverage across the state.
ELDP – 3: Creation of School Leadership Development Facilitators from department in 4 pilot districts
Policy Planning Unit (PPU) in collaboration with Azim Premji Foundation and ELM Resource Institutions designed and piloted a School Leadership Development Programme for developing 82 BRPs in 4 districts (Kolar, Kodagu, Shimoga and Hassan).
ELDP – 4: Development of School Leadership Development Facilitators in all NEK districts
The nine districts in North East Karnataka (NEK) - Bidar, Gulbarga, Yadgir, Raichur, Bellary, Koppal, Gadag, Bagalkote, and Bijapur - are amongst the most economically and educationally backward in Karnataka. The objective of this program is to set the basis for improving governance and management of the elementary education sector in Karnataka by supporting the re-orientation of the academic and administrative institutions in the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) such that they become more skilled in managing to achieve the desired results. Specific objectives include:
1. Implementing School leadership development programme in 9 NEK districts
2. Selecting and developing Resource institutions and resource persons from Govt.
3. Developing capacities of Block level functionaries - BEOs and BRCs
4. Developing School Leadership Development Facilitators and through them, conduct School Leadership Development Programme
Cohesive District Education Leadership Development Programme in 7 districts:
Azim Premji Foundation has, in collaboration with the Department of Public Instruction, developed and started implementing the ‘Cohesive District Education Leadership Development Programme’ to strengthen the capacities of education functionaries from schools across 7 districts: Ramanagara, Chikkaballapur, Chitradurga, Shimoga, Uttara Kannada, Dharwad and Shimoga. The programme objectives include: motivating all stakeholders from school to district level - education functionaries, resource persons, parents, people’s representatives, other allied departments and community - to actively participate in the school development process for achieving quality education. The programme design enables head teachers & CRPs to reach out to all stakeholders to get their participation in the school development process. The programme is being implemented as a collaborative effort by the Department of Public Instruction, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, UNICEF, Azim Premji Foundation and its’ Regional Resource Institution partners.
Currently all the programmes initiated by the Policy Planning Unit have been handed over to State Institute of School Leadership and Educational Planning (SISLEP) in Karnataka.
