Vinoba

India faces a persistent learning crisis. While 95 percent of primary school-aged children are enrolled, most perform poorly when evaluated for age-adjusted literacy and numeracy. More than half of children at late primary age are not proficient in reading (World Bank, 2024), and even after 10-12 years of formal schooling, students have limited exposure to vocational education and 21st-century skills. This is despite the government spending about USD 100 billion annually (₹55,000 per student per year) and operating 66 percent of schools in the country, where over 130 million children study – primarily in rural areas. Teachers in these schools are highly qualified, recruited through rigorous competitive examinations, and earn three times more than private school teachers (TISS, 2023). With such extensive investment and infrastructure, government schools are key to improving education quality at scale. Systemic challenges persist; teachers, spread over remote rural areas, spend disproportionate time on administrative tasks, have limited tools for connection and peer learning, and lack recognition and professional support. They lack easy access to quality teaching materials and struggle to address mixed learning levels in classrooms. Communication between administrators and schools is fragmented, often relying on unofficial channels like WhatsApp, with little reliable data to measure the effectiveness of programs. Without a centralized system, program implementation suffers, teacher motivation declines, and the quality of student learning remains compromised.

Open Links Foundation (OLF) was founded in 2016 by Sanjay Dalmia, an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, after 25 years in corporate leadership. OLF's mission is to make government schools aspirational by improving the quality of education through the Vinoba program. Our theory of change rests on two premises: (a) support and motivate teachers, who are key to student outcomes, and (b) improve program implementation efficiency to enable student practice and feedback at scale. Vinoba supports holistic education through academic and life skill programs via a threefold intervention: 1. A vibrant teacher community, by providing a platform for teachers to connect, share, and learn. Teachers post about projects on poetry recitation, storytelling, spoken English, creative writing, environmental activities, etc. This connects over 200,000 teachers in remote rural areas, who add 50,000 posts each month. 2. Grassroots-level academic support for programs like FLN, 10th and 12th practice tests, and scholarship preparation, with support for program management, data analysis, etc. Each district that we operate in has, on average, 2 field staff working directly with administrators and teachers. 3. Easy access to content, through centralized access to circulars, academic content, activities, worksheets, morning assembly resources, career counselling, mental health content, etc. Without Vinoba, this material remains buried in menus and folders, and discovery stays weak. As local context varies vastly within and across states, the program aligns with the district administration to ensure successful implementation. The Vinoba program has achieved remarkable scale, now covering over 63,000 schools with 2 lakh registered teachers and 6,000+ administrative staff across 37 districts in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar, impacting 4.6 million students. The program has demonstrated tangible outcomes across academic programs and life skills activities, providing holistic development for students.