ShikshaLokam

ShikshaLokam is an Indian organisation that works to enable and amplify K-12 education system leadership in India. It was founded in 2017 under the Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives (SFPI), whose patrons are Mr SD Shibulal and Mrs Kumari Shibulal. Its vision is enriching learning experiences for all children in India. It believes that public schools improve only when education leaders own and drive change from within the system. It defines a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for improving education, including teachers, headmasters, officials, parents, youth and women. Its core method is the micro-improvement: a small, goal-oriented change carried out through a cycle of Sense, Make Sense, Learn and Improve.

Headquarters: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Major Areas of Work

• Education system leadership: Building the capacity of headmasters and district, block and cluster level officials to lead school improvement.

• Community leadership: Supporting women, parents and youth to design and lead local improvements in public schools.

• Micro-improvement practice: Helping leaders use data, observation and peer dialogue to plan and carry out small, measurable school changes.

• Government co-creation: Working with the Ministry of Education, Government of India, on education leadership missions and initiatives.

• Open digital infrastructure: Building open-source tools that help leaders observe, mentor, analyse and improve.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Shikshagraha: A people's movement to improve India's 1 million public schools by bringing government, civil society, markets, media and communities together to carry out micro-improvements.

• ELEVATE: An open-source digital platform that helps education leaders observe, mentor, analyse and improve.

• InvokED: A global dialogue on education leadership, held in Bengaluru, that brings attention to education leaders and their work.

• Shikshagraha Awards: Awards that honour exceptional leaders in education.

• Education leadership missions: Leadership missions and initiatives co-created with the Ministry of Education, Government of India.

Shikshagraha is the organisation's flagship effort. It supports system leaders and community leaders to identify problems specific to their schools and design local fixes. ShikshaLokam describes this as a way to increase the speed, scale and scope of change in underserved regions. It calls its wider approach the Societal Thinking Model, which combines an amplification network, co-creation with government and shared digital infrastructure.

Working at ShikshaLokam means working on public education at the level of whole systems rather than single schools. Staff work alongside government officials, civil society organisations and community members, and on open-source technology used by education leaders across the country. The work suits people interested in education policy, leadership development, programme design, community mobilisation or digital public goods. It also suits people who want their work to shape how public institutions improve from within.