Seeking Significant Gains for Significantly Large Population of Children

Pankaj Vinayak Sharma and Tanushree Narain Sharma 

In 2019, we set out to address one of India’s most urgent education challenges: bridging the learning gap in secondary schools. What began as a small, mission-driven team has since evolved into Transform Schools - a collaboration between People For Action (PFA) and The Transform Trust (T3). People For Action receives national and international grants and T3 competes for payment for services contracts and corporate CSR grants. We are now a growing force for scalable, systemic change, working across Odisha, Karnataka, Tripura, West Bengal, Telangana and beyond. From the outset, Transform Schools mission has been clear: to improve learning outcomes for secondary school children in India by designing solutions that are effective, inclusive, and built to scale. We believe that when every child is supported to realise their full potential—not just in school, but in life beyond—education becomes a true force for equity and transformation.

Transform Schools has been backed by the Kusuma Trust, Greenwood Place, The Nudge Institute, Marico, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the BT Group, British Asian Trust, Bajaj Finserv, United Way Hyderabad, Qualcomm, Echidna Giving, Odisha Mining Corporation, Paradeep Phosphates Limited, Central Square Foundation and the World Bank. With this support, and systems and evidence partnership, our programmes have reached over 10 million students in just six years and unlocked government investment of over INR 100Cr.

Our model is simple yet powerful: we run an ‘Innovations Lab’ to design and test learning enhancement programmes rooted in evidence, and partner with governments to scale these proven models. The evidence is compelling; we have seen up to 1.5 years of additional learning gains in under 50 hours of teacher-led instruction and globally, it is amongst the most cost-effective models. This journey has never been only about numbers. It’s about navigating the real tensions of purpose and performance, building systems that scale with fidelity, and nurturing a team driven by equity and excellence.

Now, more than ever, we believe this is the moment for catalytic capital and strategic philanthropy to back investable, high-impact innovations aligned with national policy and Social Development Goals (SDGs) namely - SDG 4 (Quality Education for All), SDG 5(Gender Equality) and SDG 10 (Reducing Inequalities).

Some of these issues make our mission critical. While it is important to build programmes that lead to outsized gains for a few exceptionally gifted children, it is equally important that system actors support significant gains for a significant population. Ebbing the tide of poor education outcomes is as much an issue of social justice, as it is of education. Here is how we see progress going forward:

1. India’s Skill Gap and the Role of Education

India stands at a demographic crossroads, with one of the world’s youngest populations. But without a strong secondary education system, the promise of this dividend risks becoming a crisis. Over 50% of students in secondary school still struggle with foundational literacy and numeracy—locking them out of higher education, employability, and dignity.

Secondary education is the bridge between promise and potential. Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are uniquely placed to design and support solutions that are not only scalable, but grounded in equity and built for system integration.

2. The Expanding Landscape for Scalable CSO Innovations

A policy and systems shift is underway in India. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, large-scale efforts like Tripura Rural Economic Growth and Service Delivery Project (TRESP) and Supporting Andhra's Learning Transformation (SALT), and state-level partnerships have opened new pathways for CSOs to move from pilots to ‘at-scale’ platforms.

We stand on the shoulders of visionary initiatives like Pratham’s Teaching at the Right Level (TARL), which revolutionised foundational learning, and Educational Initiatives (Ei), which pioneered innovative assessment models that provide actionable insights into student learning and performance. These innovations created critical momentum at the base of the pyramid.

Transform Schools fills a crucial gap - focusing squarely on the secondary years, where the learning crisis re-emerges. Our work embeds large-scale, low-stakes assessments, targeted instruction, teacher training, and digital tools into public systems, with a particular focus on reaching rural children who are often excluded.

3. Impact at Scale: The Transform Schools Story

From the outset, we knew scale alone wouldn’t suffice. We had to balance scale with depth, while building government ownership from day one. Key pivots included investing in robust data systems, shifting from direct delivery to government co-designing and co-implementation, and growing a team committed to long-term systems change.

The results: 10 million children reached with a programme that is proven by a J-PAL led RCT to add up to 1.5 years of additional learning in less than 50 hours, and adoption across multiple States with strong learning and systemic improvements.

In Odisha, we’ve partnered with the State since 2019 to drive large-scale secondary education reforms across all 30 districts - reaching 2.3 million students and 34,000 teachers in ~8,500 schools. Our Transform Learning programme, adapted as Utkarsh, delivers 200 hours of targeted instruction annually through government teachers. We addressed the need to strengthen teacher capacity through a Teacher Professional Development (TPD) model for ~17,000 teachers, supported by a competency framework. System-wide reforms include Sahitya Srujani, reaching 1 million students with creative literacy inputs, and Future School Leadership Programme (FSLP), which addressed the need to strengthen leadership skills of Head Teachers, with 84% of them graduating as accomplished leaders. The Learning Equaliser Programme is currently being tested in a district of Odisha, in Kolkata, and in Mulugu, a district in Telangana. It is a bold step toward inclusive, gender-transformative education that equips adolescents of all genders with gender-transformative academic and life skills.

In Tripura, partnering with the World Bank’s TRESP programme, we’ve supported State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) to co-design a continuous professional development (CPD) model aligned with NEP 2020. This includes structured CPD cycles, mentorship, and structured pedagogies - creating not just better teachers, but resilient public systems.

In Karnataka, we partnered with the Government to support the design and scale-up of their Marusinchana programme - a structured, scripted, and time-bound intervention proven to bridge learning gaps. Building on its success in the pilot implementation, the government now aims to implement the programme statewide in 2025–26, reaching over 2 million students across 27,000 schools. Our work instilled massive scale teacher-led assessments to build nuanced knowledge of learning gaps, guide systemic response and support teachers in targeted instruction.

As a part of the Transform Schools initiative, PFA and T3 partner to design and deliver our programmes in India. PFA is supported by Transform Schools UK (TSUK) to build global partnerships and philanthropic capital for secondary education in India. They enable a powerful combination of grassroots delivery, systemic reform, and global partnerships.

4. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) Partnerships: From Local Proof to Systemic Change

CSR partnerships have been pivotal to our journey - fuelling innovation, enabling risk, and stitching scale with the State.

Programmes like the Learning Equaliser with Science Capital (with Qualcomm), Transform Learning (with Paradeep Phosphates), Transform PARity and Learning Equaliser (with the BT Group) and Back to School (with Qualcomm and Bajaj Finserv) show what’s possible when corporates invest in the hard work of inclusion and innovation.

At the local level, these partnerships have re-enrolled out-of-school children and brought personalised learning to rural classrooms. At scale, they’ve served as proof points for systemic adoption - demonstrating the value of technology, targeted instruction, and outcome-focused models.

When CSR and CSOs collaborate intentionally, they don’t just fund programmes - they unlock long-term public value.

5. Big Levers for Change: Quality, Relevance, Evidence, and Capacity

Transforming secondary education at scale requires more than good intentions. It demands:

• Systems thinking - moving from fragmented delivery to integrated state-wide reforms.

• Quality and contextualisation - programmes that reflect the lived realities of rural and tribal learners.

• Stakeholder ownership - mobilising community voice, school leadership, and local governance.

• Evidence and learning - embedding A/B testing, dashboards, and M&E at the heart of delivery.

• Organisational capital - akin to angel investment - empowers CSOs to build enduring systems, pipelines of leadership, and resilient operating models. It’s the difference between scaling a programme and scaling impact.

As an organisation, we are actively seeking these elements to drive long-term, sustainable change in secondary education and to scale our impact.

6. Reimagining Secondary Education: The State of Secondary Education (SOSE) Collaborative

The State of Secondary Education collaborative, co-led by Transform Schools, Global Schools Forum, PEAS, Pratham and others, is a global systems-change initiative placing secondary education at the centre of public and philanthropic investment.

Secondary education continues to be one of the most overlooked stages - underfunded, under-researched, and under-prioritised in reform. SOSE brings its urgency and potential into focus, framing it as a powerful lever for equity and transformation. By 2030, it aims to drive investment, research, and reform to make secondary education a universal societal minimum standard.

SOSE aims to convene and align actors across 15+ countries around key levers: adolescent agency, public investment, classroom practice, financing pathways, and evidence-informed policy. It is creating a shared ambition that every adolescent, regardless of background, can learn, lead, and thrive.

Transform Schools is proud to anchor this effort, helping reframe secondary education as a global public good with transformative potential.

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The opportunity to transform secondary education—at scale, with equity, and for good—is here.

We invite funders, policymakers, investors and partners to:

Innovate boldly — invest in high-leverage, scalable, and proven models.

Collaborate deeply — co-create with States, communities, and coalitions.

Measure relentlessly — share what works, what doesn’t, and why.

Orchestrate systems change — because this is a global moment for secondary education.

At Transform Schools, we believe that education transforms lives. Our journey—from startup to systems player—has been powered by the faith of our Boards, the rigour of our team, and the courage of our partners.

To Abha Thorat-Shah, Chair of the UK Board, Trustees - Amit Sharma, Dr Sandra Sequeira, Dr Deepta Chopra and advisors- Rebecca Eastmond, Soma Pujari and Sharath Jeevan: thank you for your clarity and global perspective. To Dr Sanjay Patra, Shailesh K Singh, Madhuri Dass Woudenberg, Venkitesan Ramakrishnan, and Sreela Das Gupta at the India Board of People For Action: thank you for keeping us grounded in mission and excellence. To our advisors, partners, and supporters- Prince Jain, SK Jain, Akshay Soni, Aarti Kapoor, Madhuri Narayanan, Dr Balwant Singh, RN Mohanty, Rahul Nayak, Dr Rukmini Banerji, Dr Suman Bhattacharjea, Lakshmi Pattabi Raman, Priya Mantri Ajmera, Dilip Pattubala, Janine Schooley, Dr Sabrin Beg, Dr Anne Fitzpatrick, Dr Jason Kerwin, Dr Adrienne Lucas, Dr Paul Glewwe, Dr Khandker Wahedur Rahman, Dr Suman Seth, Jenny Groot, Laura Brown, Aashti Zaidi Hai, Safeena Husain, Alison Bukhari and our supporters: Grateful for your steady support and belief in our work. To our awesome and growing team, executive leadership group and emerging Global Governing Council: your belief in our mission continues to inspire.

This transformation is not just possible - it is urgent. Let’s rise to the moment. Let’s transform education- and in doing so, transform lives.