This interview is the third in a series of four interviews of Skoll Social Entrepreneurs working in education by Rahim Kanani, Editor-in-Chief World Affairs Commentary. See the other interviews in this series: Ellen Moir of New Teacher Center and Eric Schwartz of Citizen Schools.
Recently, I interviewed Dr. Madhav Chavan, Co-Founder, President and CEO of Pratham and a 2011 recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Pratham is the largest nongovernmental 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.
“Madhav Chavan is transforming India’s approach to children’s literacy and education,” said Sally Osberg, President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation. “Chavan’s unwavering insistence on universal education, and his work to engage community volunteers in the quest for literacy, has already reached more than 34 million children, offering a proven model for the entire world.”
Rahim Kanani: Describe a little bit about the inspiration and motivation behind the founding of Pratham.
Madhav Chavan: The original thought that led to the formation of Pratham came from UNICEF in Mumbai. They set up the Bombay Education Initiative in order to create a three-way partnership between government, businesses, and civil society to own and solve the problems of universalization of primary education in Mumbai. The process that followed eventually led to the formation of an independent charity in which people from government, businesses, and civil society became Board members. Once this was done, we went on to build on-scale interventions.
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