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Systemic Education Reform Program

Wipro Foundation’s Systemic Education Reform program supports diverse Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to develop their capacities to work towards systemic reform of school education in the country.

We currently support three categories of organizations across the country through organizational grants:

  • Early and mid-stage organizations working in the area of school education
  • Community-based organizations having a desire to get into school education
  • Established organizations not from the education vertical but keen to enter the field of education

Organizations working in school education

For organizations already into school education, our grants aim to deepen capacities or build additional capacities to take the work to the next level. This could mean any of the following:

  • Building capabilities in specific areas of focus within education by working on the ground with support from experienced organizations, resources, and people.
  • Consolidating the work done so far into approaches and models of engagement that can be expanded, scaled, and shared.
  • Building capacities to become a resource supplier for other organizations in education in a specific area of focus/expertise within the education.

Community Organizations

We provide small grants to established organizations with a strong community presence, working on one or more aspects of community development and empowerment, and having a desire to work in school education, specifically to improve the public education system in their areas of operation, to do the following:

  • Build an education-focused team of 2-4 people
  • Build their capacity to work in school education, particularly the public education system, through on-the-ground work and specific capacity building opportunities

It would be good to either have some team members with existing teaching experience or for the organization to have had some experience in the school education space, including, but not limited to teaching-learning aspects.

Established Organizations not in the education sector

For organizations with expertise and track record in other areas of social activities such as health, environment, livelihood, human rights, governance, etc. or knowledge domains such as natural and human/social sciences, we provide grants to enable these organizations to bring their expertise and learning into the area of school education. The grants would be to do the following:

  • Build a core team to work in the area of school education. An ideal team would include people from an education background as well as domain experts.
  • Develop an understanding and experience of working in school education. This experience will then help the organization understand the unique challenges and devise appropriate strategies for a deeper engagement to improve school education by incorporating relevant aspects of domain knowledge and capabilities
  • Enable the organizations to work with other educational organizations on specific domain areas to bolster their understanding of the work.

Within each category of organization, the support is aimed at helping them build deeper capacities to work in school education. We support organizations through:

  • Financial Grants – Our financial support is aimed at enabling organizations to work in a focused manner to improve the quality of education in schools in geographies and educational domains of their choice. The grants could be for developing a core team in education, helping the core team gain on-the-ground experience to work with children, teachers, schools, and the education system, and for developing sound, practical and scalable solutions in their geographies of work.
  • Opportunities for Capacity Building – To support our partners’ need for continuous learning, we try to actively facilitate formal and informal opportunities for capacity building through diverse modes such as short courses, workshops, communities of practice, etc. on a wide range of educational and organizational topics. These opportunities are open to all partners, irrespective of the financial support provided
  • Mentoring Support – Since some of our early-stage partners might need sustained support on educational and operational aspects of their intervention, we also facilitate mentoring support through established resource organizations or resource persons with significant experience in the education domain.
  • Our Partner Network – Our partner network is the outcome of a conscious effort to build a civil society ecosystem in school education. This network offers several peer-learning opportunities and partner initiated collaborative forums across organizations and individuals working in diverse geographies and contexts, with experience and expertise in a wide range of educational issues and domains. This network is an integral part of our partnership.

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Guiding Principles

  • Demonstrated Capacities and Commitment: The program supports organizations with a serious commitment to the social/education sector through their past engagements.
  • Clear Organizational Objectives and Structures: The program aims to facilitate the development of stable educational CSOs that can engage with school education in the long-term and expects the work in education to align with the organization’s overall vision and objective. Structures and processes to facilitate smooth organizational functioning should also be in place
  • Engagement with Class/School Issues: While issues outside schools/classrooms such as those related to community, nutrition/health, etc., are essential for effective education, we believe that to create effective educational NGOs that can have a systemic impact, a core education team that engages directly with the children and teachers within-class/school issues (such as curricular and pedagogic aspects) is critical
  • Focused Approach:Education requires some degree of specialized knowledge, and effective educational NGOs are often willing to go deeper into a few educational domains/disciplines as opposed to being generalists who attempt to address all educational issues at once or play the role only of mediators (e.g. by providing readymade content available to a set of schools)
  • Balanced Teams: If organizations have to develop and sustain over the long run, it is important to have balanced teams of partners/co-owners who while on one hand have allied sensibilities and interests (which geography to work in, which educational domains to focus on, which demographics to cater to, etc.); on the other hand, are also able to provide constructive feedback to each other and complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Selection Criteria

School Education Organizations:

  • Good Clarity and understanding of the sub-domain / focus within education.
  • 2+ years of work experience in the chosen education sub-domain.
  • Willingness to work with the public system to bring systemic reform in education.
  • Clarity on the operational model and aspects (Theory of Change and Theory of Action).

Community Organizations:

  • Strong community presence.
  • Firm’s desire to work with the school education system (within the same community context).
  • Willingness to engage with the public school system and relevant actors.
  • A small committed team with experience in the education field.

Established Non-Education Organizations:

  • Expertise and credible track record in other areas of social action (e.g. health / environment / livelihood / governance / human-rights).
  • Strong desire to work with the school education system.
  • Readiness to learn and develop an understanding of working in school education.
  • A small committed team with experience in education.

Selection Process

The selection process involves the following steps:

  • The interested organization submits an online application.
  • Shortlisted organizations are contacted to provide a detailed proposal.
  • The Wipro Foundation team gets in touch with the organization for further clarification and/or field visits.
  • A detailed proposal is presented to the review committee after due diligence.
  • The decision on the grant is conveyed to the applicant via email.

Please note:the review and decision-making process involves multiple stages/back and forth communication that could take a month or more.