A social and political activist of the 70’s, a student and teacher at the US and finally landing up with the National Literacy Mission when it was taking shape, and now PRATHAM-his way of life.

In December 1994, a Public Charitable Trust called ‘Pratham’ was formed with the support of the UNICEF and the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. Their aim- "Universal Primary Education" in Mumbai by the year 2000.And the responsibility of building the work rested on his shoulders. Mr Madhav Chavan, who modestly refuses to call himself the founder, has certainly walked hand in hand with every hurdle and victory at Pratham. Although he doesn’t take credit for anything, the 14 centers, which have mushroomed around the country, say it all.

Amazingly it was the mind-sets of Indians that was the main problem that Pratham faced in its initial years. “ The situation is better today. Initially convincing people about the structure we aimed at was very difficult as we were starting with 11 people but things happened. Today with so many established centers around the country they are convinced” says Mr Chavan.

 “ Our Indian system is one of mass education. In case of the upper class, where children go to private schools it is the parents who teach, but in case of municipal schools it is the teacher who teaches. So it is the municipal school where the lower class inhibits its basic reading writing skills and this is where Pratham comes to action” states Mr Chavan. There are various problems faced by the slum children in case of education, the first and most important being, getting them to school. Even if they do get to school they do not retain what they are taught and parents participation is almost zilch. As a result of which only 30-35% graduate to a reading level.

Thus the goal of Pratham was broken down into sub-goals in a simple statement, ‘ Every child in school, regularly, and learning by 2000’.These sub-goals were working in parallel with the methodology of Societal Mission which Pratham had chosen to achieve their goals. Instead of relying entirely on the government officers and teachers to achieve the goals, a triangular partnership, involving citizens, corporations and government machinery was envisaged. Under this whole methodology Pratham has chalked out four main programmes and other supporting programme models, namely the Balwadi, Health programme, Bridge course and Balsakhi. Additionally it runs non-formal centers, The Pratishristi - Computer Assisted Learning Model and the Information Cell Model created by Pratham for the Municipal Corporation of Mumbai's Education Department.

Another important thing in today’s education models according to Mr Chavan, is replication. It is replication of projects that would be leading to high scalability of the issue. If anyone in the country wants to start a Pratham- he can just go ahead, and help will fall into place. “ It’s the simplicity of the model that will make it work” claims Mr Chavan. “ If there is a belief in the goodness of the process, there are no complications, its not very costly, there are no rigid rules and regulations, then everything will fall into place” he adds.

The difference that Pratham has made to the slum communities and government school system is incalculable and we hope they climb epitomes of success in Building societal missions for Universal pre-school and primary education.

- Sayli Udas