Vikramshila Education Resource Society

Vikramshila Education Resource Society is an education nonprofit that has worked since 1989 to strengthen education systems so that every child, regardless of background, has access to meaningful learning. It works alongside governments, educators and communities to co-create solutions that support teachers, strengthen classrooms and build change from early childhood through adolescence. Its stated approach is to strengthen public systems rather than build parallel structures, and to treat families and communities as partners in learning. It describes its practice as evidence-led, with research and data shaping what it designs, and equity-led, starting with the children who need education most. Its work spans the full learning journey, covering both access and quality at every stage.

Head Quaters: Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Major Areas of Work

• Early childhood care and education: Strengthening early learning systems through Anganwadis and communities, including curriculum support and classroom practice.

• Early childhood development: Working on the first 1000 days of life to shape lifelong health and learning outcomes.

• Foundational literacy and numeracy: Building reading and numeracy skills in the early grades through structured classroom interventions and system-wide reform.

• Adolescents and youth: Equipping adolescents with life skills, STEM exposure and career readiness for learning, life and work.

• Mentoring and capacity building: Sustained mentoring of teachers, Anganwadi workers and education officials to strengthen educators and the systems around them.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Naba Disha: A programme opening new pathways to learning, confidence and opportunity for children in West Bengal.

• First 1000 Days of Life: An early childhood development project focused on the period from conception to age two, run in partnership and now in a second phase.

• Career Guidance: Career readiness work for adolescents, delivered at scale in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal alongside state systems.

• Life Skills and STEM: Programmes in West Bengal that combine life skills and STEM exposure with foundational learning for holistic student development.

• State FLN system strengthening: Statewide foundational literacy and numeracy work in Madhya Pradesh and Tripura through system reform and educator mentoring.

The largest single deployment is in Uttar Pradesh, where Vikramshila states it works across 75 districts on early learning, foundational literacy and career readiness, supported by system strengthening and educator capacity building. Elsewhere the footprint ranges from state-level engagements in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tripura to district work in Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Orissa.

Impact

Vikramshila states it works in 11+ states and has run 300+ projects, reaching 50,000+ teachers and 25M+ children since 1989; its own impact dashboard separately cites 20 active projects and a total reach of 1M+, which appears to describe current work rather than the cumulative figure. It maintains a partnership with UNICEF, which supports its early childhood work in Jharkhand.

Leadership

• Shubhra Chatterji, Founder and Director
• Justice (Retd.) Pinaki Chandra Ghose, President, Governing Body
• Atanu Sain, Deputy Director
• Satya Gopal Dey, Head of Child Protection and Government Relations

Working here means building inside government systems rather than around them, with Anganwadi workers, teachers, block and district officials as the people the work reaches. It suits someone who wants field exposure across very different states, from single-district pilots to a 75-district rollout, and who is interested in the full arc of a child's learning rather than one stage of it. The mix of curriculum design, teacher mentoring, research and state-level system reform gives room to specialise or to see how the pieces connect.