KER (Kids Education Revolution) School

Kids Education Revolution is an innovation program by Teach For India, a non-profit registered in India as Teach To Lead. Teach For India is also supported by Teach For India U.S., an independent, mission-aligned 501c3 nonprofit.

India, home to 250 million school-going children enrolled in 1.5 million schools, has the world’s largest education system. Yet, 50 million children – one in five – have not attained foundational literacy and numeracy. Furthermore, over 80% of children do not receive training in 21st century skills required to succeed even as employers desire 71% 21st-century skills and 29% technical skills among talent. With millions of children also living in poverty, India’s education crisis runs deep and wide.

The specific problem in India’s education that we are working to address is two-fold: 

1. Education in India has the narrow purpose of enabling children to pass exams and acquire academic qualifications – it does not equip them with the 21st century skills required to be changemakers who build a kinder, more peaceful, and more prosperous world;

2. Students do not have a say in what they will learn or how they will learn – decisions are overwhelmingly taken by adults, amplifying a power imbalance in the system.

The current narrative in India is that foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) is a silver bullet to solve India’s education crisis. Our education system is deficient in teacher training, pedagogy and curriculum design. This leads to a rote learning based, exam-dominated structure which has the limited purpose of providing academic qualifications. This system does not empower the majority of our children to thrive in the 21st century world, engage in civic issues, and care about their communities and environment. Instead, it encourages competition and the advancement of a ‘self-first’ mindset – a desire to solely advance oneself and improve academically – which perpetuates the country’s problems. 

Against the backdrop of global crises like climate change and polarization, there is an urgent need to not only equip children to thrive academically, but also solve 21st century challenges. This can be achieved through a holistic education that helps children unleash their unique potential and build the requisite skills to become compassionate, conscious, and collaborative changemakers who take action to solve problems they are passionate about in small and big ways. 

There is a lack of student voice and choice in the adult-led education system, making learning less user-centric, not only in government schools but also high-income schools. For years, the education system has dictated what students must learn, how they must learn, and what they should do with those learnings. Adults typically make decisions about curriculum, then transmit knowledge through largely one way lectures in classrooms, and create systems for assessment and remediation. Jean Rudduck's data suggests that if consultation with pupils “is thoughtfully introduced and developed, then it has the potential to strengthen pupils’ commitment to learning.” But students have limited or no voice in decision making. This impacts what and how students learn, and its relevance in their daily lives. It is also counter-intuitive because user-friendliness — foregrounding the voice of the ultimate beneficiary and keeping their needs at the center – ought to be at the core of every human-centered design – including education.

Kids Education Revolution (KER) was founded with the radical idea that students and educators must be partners, reimagining education together. KER runs a series of programmes designed to enable children to grow as leaders and changemakers in their communities. Every programme is centered around our three principles (3Ps): safe spaces for student voice; collaboration between kids and educators as partners; and recognizing and empowering kids as change-makers. These principles are rooted in the ideas of cultivating the ability to listen to each other, sharing openly in safe spaces, anchoring decision-making to the needs of children, and keeping children at the center. 

The right education – one that builds values and equips children with the necessary skill set to be changemakers – can act as a bridge to a better life for each child, and a more equal, just, and free world for all people. At KER, we believe that every child can grow to their fullest potential as a leader and changemaker when they focus on understanding the Self, work in collaboration with Others, and act as empowered citizens for a better India & World. Growth on these four commitments to Self, Others, India and the World, looks like children progressing towards leading change in:

• their own lives by discovering who they are, cultivating belief in themselves, finding their purpose, mastering learning goals and advancing towards a livelihood and life of their choice; 

• the lives of others by building strong, inter-dependent communities;

• India and the World by deepening their understanding of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity (India’s Constitutional values), and identifying and solving problems they care about.

KER School is a holistic, digital and gamified learning experience designed to exponentially scale KER’s mission and reach all children with a reimagined education – no matter where they come from. It is an opportunity for our vision for students – anchored in three leadership dimensions – leading Self, Others, and India – to come to life through content that helps children build habits rooted in our 8Cs(21st century skills that enable children to grow as leaders): Communication, Courage, Compassion, Collaboration, Consciousness, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Curiosity. As children internalize and embody these skills in their daily lives, they succeed within the existing system, become prepared to navigate the world beyond school, and grow into the leaders that our world needs. It is also an opportunity for children to exercise choice while they learn, which is traditionally denied to them. They are empowered to pick the content they are most interested in, the way in which they want to learn (by listening, reading, through movement), engage with a community of changemakers for peer-led learning, and assess their development.

KER School is a new project designed to exponentially scale our work and reach all children with the opportunity for a reimagined education, balancing depth and scale of impact. 

In the near term, our target demographic is students from Grades 5-12 (elementary, middle and high school) from diverse socio-economic backgrounds within and beyond India.

Our target audience is underserved because the current education system does not sufficiently build student voice and leadership or the desire to change things for the better. Our children need more. They need to be given opportunities to look within and explore their own potential as well as be exposed to ways in which they can solve problems with real-world impact. 

KER School will address their needs in the following ways:

• Empower children to build 21st century skills and become better leaders by drawing from multiple evidence-backed sources:  award-winning educator Kiran Bir Sethi’s design-led approach, which reworks and reimagines every aspect of a school by placing the development of a child’s agency and character at the center, to create confident, empowered and humane citizens; Service Space, an incubator of transformative labor-of-love projects; Alain de Botton’s School of Life which helps people find self-understanding, resilience, and connection to make optimal decisions; India’s National Education Policy 2020, which advocates for a multidisciplinary education to develop children’s social, physical, intellectual, emotional, and moral capacities.

• Help children build voice and choice by shifting power back to them. At the heart of KER school is choice – an opportunity for children to choose what, how, and when they want to learn – as against the traditional school system where all children are expected to learn similar content in similar ways and demonstrate it through similar evaluations. As a self-paced learning experience, they will be presented with content that suits their learning needs, interests, and development stage, leveraging reflection, exploration, and creation. 

• The current education system evaluates a child’s ability to memorize and reproduce content in exams as opposed to gauging real mastery and application of concepts. KER School assesses student growth through self-reported reflections on children’s ability to apply knowledge in their contexts. The fact that children are encouraged to reflect on their own growth and report it, instead of standardized tests by an external stakeholder, is a testament to the system’s faith in children and simulation of life beyond school. Furthermore, it moves evaluations beyond binary pass-fail outcomes towards a journey of curiosity and problem-solving.

While our immediate goal is to build 15,000 student leaders through KER School by 2032, our vision remains to reach all children.

The KER team has a track record of conceptualizing and implementing innovative programs rooted in its 3Ps and 8Cs. Since 2017, KER has impacted 100,000+ students and educators.

• “Fellows of the Future” brings together 25-35 students from grades 8- 12 annually to equip them with knowledge, skills and mindsets to run and sustain change projects in schools and communities. Student interns undergo a rigorous 6-week leadership training program, shadowing Teach For India's new teacher training program.

• Revolutionary Retreat is a three-day, immersive leadership program for students and educators from diverse backgrounds. It fosters connections and nurtures a local movement of changemakers united in efforts to reimagine education for a better world.

• India-and-I Studies are curricular resources for grades 3-8, which build in children the practice of India’s Constitutional values through the 8Cs towards engaged citizenship. Overall, the India-and-I Studies impact 14,000 students through 311 educators across eight cities in India, and includes two partnerships with state governments.

• Conference of The Birds was a 20-month journey with 24 students from grades 5-10 – not pre-selected for talent and years behind learning levels – to understand and apply India’s Constitutional values of Equality, Justice, Fraternity and Liberty. It culminated in  nine live shows across three cities, where students performed in a Sufi-inspired, Broadway-style musical before 6,400 system-wide stakeholders. The film premiered in partnership with Nickelodeon India. 

Our ideas have had global impact: Teach For All network partners like Teach For Armenia and Teach for Malaysia, inspired by KER, have set up similar initiatives in their regions. KER projects are regularly spotlit in global network fora and publications: our Conference of The Birds production and Museum of Grey Sunshine initiatives were selected by Teach For All from 130+ entries as ‘Network Breakthroughs’ in fostering student partnership, and our collective impact has featured in a case study launched at the 2024 Comparative and International Education Society summit.

We have always prioritized proximity to the communities that we serve: KER programs are designed and implemented in partnership with children to include their voice and needs. Similarly, for KER School:

• We conducted focus groups with previous KER participants to clarify the need for KER School, user behavior, and feedback on early-stage designs.

• We will build a student curriculum team to partner on content development, and decode children’s interaction with digital platforms.

• KER student interns (previous KER participants) will anchor digital communities on WhatsApp and convene children in peer-and-mentor-led learning spaces. 

We are partnering with experts to bring our vision to life:

• Teach For India’s (TFI) Founder-CEO’s vision and guidance informs KER’s mission.

• 100% of the KER School team includes graduates of TFI’s transformative Fellowship.

• TFI’s technology team is identifying suitable digital platforms.

• TFI’s Firki team (open-source teacher training platform) is supporting product design and implementation.

• Experienced members from similar enterprises like Reap Benefit, Museum of Solutions, Service Space, and Design for Life that run successful digital learning platforms are guiding us.

• An external consultant with digital product design experience is working on this.

KER ran a year-long experiment which deeply influenced the KER School project:

In 2022, KER ran a Fellowship program with a group of children from low-, middle-, and high-income schools in Mumbai whose purpose was to: 

• help them build 21st century skills (our 8Cs) and a muscle for change-making;

• assess how children from diverse backgrounds learn together; 

• understand what self-paced learning in its most nascent form looks like;

• ascertain how a structured journey across all these themes would play out. 

Through the course of this program, we witnessed children developing a strong sense of community and operating with empathy for one another (as evidenced by the sessions they conducted for each other to transfer their learnings), identifying challenges in their schools and engaging in micro-actions to solve them, taking ownership of their learning  (for example, we piloted self-learning packets and observed many students returning to their notes to refresh their learning and share insights with peers.)

Our prototype: To test our approach and clarify our ultimate product, we created and tested a prototype at our flagship event, the Revolutionary Retreat, with 120 student leaders. The prototype consisted of a WhatsApp chatbot to drive engagement, deliver content, encourage self-paced learning, and nudge reflection. Our study confirmed the robustness of our hypotheses for KER School.

Intensifying our research: To more deeply explore and include expertise on user experience design in the digital space, we onboarded BRND Studios as a consulting partner. Over several months, we have invested time in interviews with diverse stakeholders for inputs on technology, design and content possibilities. We have also engaged with students to understand their needs better. BRND Studios have also been studying diverse digital platforms for KER to potentially pilot and build on during the year.

Teach For India continues to receive 70% of its funding in restricted forms (e.g. CSR grants), which prove challenging when directing investments to innovative programmes, pilots, and our leadership. MIT’s recognition of KER School’s potential for impact through this prize, along with the $10,000 grant and qualification for additional funding through prizes like the GSR Foundation Prize, will enable us to flexibly fund 65%-100% of costs for KER School in 2024-25. This will enable us to realise the full potential of our programme and have the greatest impact on vulnerable, hard-to-reach children across India, and beyond.

KER’s vision and applicability are global. Exposure to MIT Solver teams, conferences, and network partners will not only enable KER to reach more students across the world and learn from their contextualized impact, but also benefit from cutting-edge research on child and leadership development, pedagogy, and more.

KER and Teach For India have leadership development embedded in our mission to advance educational equity in India. MIT’s leadership coaching support for KER will not only accelerate our own staff and Fellow leaders’ growth, but also push the frontier of our thinking on leadership development in children through our programmes and impact assessment frameworks.

KER School is a new project that will seek a viable path to scale demonstrable impact within an emerging market. MIT Solve’s monitoring and evaluation support will also guide our impact measurement approach specifically for KER School to capture the depth of impact our programme has on our users. 

The integration of Artificial Intelligence and digital technology in education is rapidly evolving, and KER and Teach For India are building capabilities in these domains. MIT’s pioneering and state-of-the-art technology and innovation research and communities of practice can play a significant role in influencing our adoption of such technologies in mindful ways across our programmes. The opportunity to share our own learnings with the MIT community through case studies and events can amplify Teach For India’s mission among researchers, students, and more – which can unlock new possibilities for partnerships.

For seven years, KER has innovatively explored what an excellent education truly means for every child through partnership with children and empowering them as young changemakers. At KER, we believe that no model for an excellent education can truly work without asking our agents of change – our children – what and how they wish to learn. We help our children dive deeper into leadership development at an early age, take ownership of the problems in their communities through our leadership development framework, and unleash their full potential. 

Since inception, KER has reached 100,000 students and educators – proof points of both depth and scale of impact. Our student leaders have leveraged our training and exposure to advocate for systemic change. An example is Rehaan Shaikh (grade 7), who, upon observing rising cancer rates and deteriorating air quality in his community caused by a toxic, local landfill, lobbied and succeeded in getting 20 of the 84 acres of landfill cleaned up, with assurances to clear the rest over time. 

KER School builds on and scales this highly creative and time-tested model and impact. It has the potential to redefine and reinvent the way children currently learn and grow. Breaking away from a system that is focused on textbooks, memorization, and standardized testing, with little emphasis on real-life application, KER School is an opportunity for children to grow holistically on four key leadership commitments – to Self, Others, India and the World– by embodying our 8Cs. 

It reinvents the traditional learning experience in multiple ways:

• It enables children to choose what they want to learn and engage with different ways of learning. As an alternative to being expected to learn at the same pace within classrooms, KER School encourages students to learn at their own pace: children can log on in their own time, review the same content multiple times, and pace through the content in a manner that best suits their learning. The chatbot will also deliver timely reminders and nudges on a gamified platform to encourage children to complete modules and track progress.

• It causes a paradigm shift: from “working for students” to “working with students” to return power to students. The project’s community engagement and support is led by previous KER students so it remains a space for, by, and of children.

• Its pedagogy is engaging, age-appropriate, simple yet rigorous, and caters to diverse learning styles. It leverages in-person and online spaces to create a compelling learning journey. 

• It diverges from textbooks to include interaction with a digital medium, in keeping with 21st century demands. Our WhatsApp chatbot is the primary interface of communication: upon content selection, children will be redirected to a microsite that houses all resources and data.

KER School breaks new ground by scaling KER’s revolutionary philosophy and practices to reach more children. By not allowing in-person access to a quality educator and infrastructure to be a barrier, it takes us closer to our vision: "one day, all children will attain an excellent education".

Our solution is rooted in our evidence-backed philosophy of the 8Cs and 3Ps, which powers every KER program. A retrospective evaluation study we commissioned to gain insights into our program outcomes between 2017 and 2022 validated the effectiveness of this philosophy, which also underpins KER School:

• Safe Space for Voice: 97% said KER programs helped them be themselves and share their thoughts and opinions without judgment.

• Kids and Educators as Partners: 95% said student-educator collaboration helps enhance the overall learning experience of students, with 63% of students collaborating to shape classroom practices and content.

•  Kids as Changemakers: 91% said that after their engagement in KER interventions, they feel confident in their ability to contribute to social change, with 69% having actively participated in student-led community projects.

• Building 21st century skills: On average, all 8Cs scored above 8.5 out of 10, evidence of KER’s ability to build these skills in students.

• Reimagining education: 69% of students mention at least one KER principle while defining an excellent education.

Findings from a pilot of our WhatsApp chatbot at the KER Revolutionary Retreat 2024 indicated:

• Children can drive their own learning when offered choice, by making informed decisions based on needs and interests. We found alignment in the number of users who chose a particular “C” as their area of growth and the “C” they consequently chose to explore. (49 users chose Communication as an area of growth; 38 users chose to learn it in the session).

• Digital learning experiences are effective in enabling children to understand, internalize and practice the 8Cs. Data showed that children left the learning experience with a deepened understanding of the Cs and the confidence to practice them.

• Chatbots are an effective way for children to learn because of their intuitive interface and method of communication. Data shows that the interactivity worked.

Anecdotal evidence from student interviews also indicate links between inputs (e.g., self-paced learning modules on a digital platform) and outcomes:

• “I have been learning guitar on YouTube… I can regulate my time and emotions and control the pace of my learning. Self-learning can be powerful since you can do it in your own unique way. Similarly, the idea of KER School and children learning the 8Cs on their own can really work. When I started engaging with the 8Cs, I could see myself become more empathetic and a better listener.” – Rhythm, Grade 6, Mumbai (India)

• “The chatbot and digital learning platform can be a great way for children to stay focused and learn since they are doing everything by themselves. While attending sessions, it is easy for us to zone out. But when we do it ourselves, we know we have the responsibility to drive our own learning. As a KER Revolutionary (previous participant), I certainly want to have avenues to keep engaging with other students who are joining the movement and this could be a great way to do that since it takes away the barriers of in-person spaces.” – Prakash, Grade 11, Uttarakhand (India)

We have multiple, holistic impact goals that we will measure progress on:

Growth in children in the embodiment of the 8Cs:

• Goal: We want 70% of our users [who sustain through all 4 modules - Self, Others, India and the World] to grow by a minimum of 2 levels in their ability to embody the 8Cs ; and 30% of our users [who sustain through 2-3 modules] to grow by 1 level in their ability to embody the 8Cs 

• Assessment method: Self reported data through surveys, anecdotal evidence from users, qualitative and quantitative data from teachers/mentors 

• Assessment frequency: Baseline, midline and endline 

• Metric type: Performance and Retention 

The number of users retained:

• Goal: We want to retain 70% of our users through the entire program,  across all 4 modules; and 30% of our users through 2-3 modules 

• Assessment method: Retention rate calculated on our Learning Management System 

• Assessment frequency: Collected cumulatively on a monthly basis and assessed at endline 

• Metric type: Retention

The number of unique users:

• Goal: We want to reach 400 unique users and retain 70% unique users (more than 250) 

• Assessment method: Retention and attrition rate calculated on Learning Management System 

• Assessment frequency: Collected cumulatively on a monthly basis and assessed at endline 

• Metric type: Reach 

Our Net Promoter Score:

• Goal: We want an NPS greater than 70 

• Assessment method: End of pilot feedback survey 

• Assessment frequency: End of pilot 

• Metric: Culture, quality of the program

Scan this QR code to access KER School's WhatsApp chatbot, powered by Engati

Since our inception, we have impacted and reached 100,000 students and educators through our programs. We now want to rapidly widen our circumference to reach more children. The KER School harnesses technology to this end.

The KER School is intended to be easy to access and navigate while also enabling holistic learning experiences for children. With its user friendliness, intuitive design, and market penetration, WhatsApp became our natural choice as the primary interface. A 2022 study revealed that at least 97% of smartphone users in India use communication apps every day, with WhatsApp being the app of choice for 96% of them; WhatsApp was the primary mode of communication used by students during the Covid-19 pandemic, and continues to serve as an effective tool for teachers to support at-home learning. 

Our WhatsApp chatbot serves as the entry point to KER School. The bot will deliver prompts and reminders to users to steer them to their unique profile dashboards. The chatbot will be integrated with a Learning Management System, which will be powered by artificial intelligence. 

We focus on the following technology and design features and intended shifts in our users (students):

Feature: A smart and well-trained bot 

Intended shift: It will provide 1:1 mentorship to users by answering FAQs and nudging them to produce high-quality deliverables by promoting Socratic thinking. This will also bring in the “human element”. The biggest highlight of our KER spaces has been the fact that children have felt supported by educators. Having the chatbot play the role of a thought partner and enabler will help recreate this in some shape or form. 

Feature: Optical Character and Image Recognition abilities of the Chatbot

Intended shift: Image to text decoding and analysis by the bot will enable children to upload images of their work and receive feedback. This will lead to high quality deliverables.

Feature: Growth trackers and opportunity to earn badges

Intended shift: As children engage in activities and feed in their reflections, our robust reward system will collate their scores. This will help their growth to feel more visible and tangible.

Feature: Unique user profiles created on and integrated across platforms

Intended shift: We will make available content that is, one, directly serving users’ specific learning needs, interests and goals, two, age-appropriate and mouldable to their particular learning patterns. Helping children access content that is tailor made for them will help us achieve not just scale but also depth of impact. This will also help increase user engagement and retention rates.

Feature: A strong Learning Management System

Intended shift: This will allow us to evolve the content at different points because it gives a lot more flexibility than other platforms do.

From Teach For India, we have 3 full-time staff members on the core (implementation) team (we are also recruiting for 1 part-time staff member), and our Founder-CEO and 3 full-time staff members on the extended team. We also have 3 technical experts to guide us from BRND studio, a design consultancy that specializes in digital products and experiences.

Our team has been working on KER School for 6 months. Prior to this, for our foundational learning, we led a year-long Fellowship in Mumbai, convening children from diverse backgrounds to become a community of change-makers. Students engaged in synchronous learning (in-person skill-building sessions) and asynchronous content (tasks practicing learned skills), to positively impact their community. Students from 3 TFI (low-income) classrooms, 3 public schools, 3 middle-income private schools and 3 high-income private schools engaged in modules to critically analyze the education system, employ design-thinking methods to reimagine and build solutions to improve Indian education, and take micro-actions for change.

At TFI, we work towards being equitable by eliminating hurdles that have traditionally kept children generally – and children from low income communities particularly – from shaping their educational experience. We believe that all children must be empowered to unleash their fullest potential, and therefore work to enable opportunities for every child – especially those most at risk and neglected by the system – leaving no child behind. 

We are centrally rooted in student voice and inclusion. We include student voices and needs in our program design and implementation, with frequent opportunities for co-execution/facilitation. Inspired by KER’s philosophy, TFI consistently reinforces student voice at conferences, partner events, and in responses to critical events like pandemic-related school closures and geopolitical conflicts. TFI Student Alumni also serve on TFI’s Advisory Board, alongside Fellow Alumni.

KER prioritizes inclusion by operating with consideration, care, and honesty. That our team feels respected and supported is borne out by our latest NPS of 57 when, typically, a favorable NPS for nonprofits is 30-50. At TFI, we create both an atmosphere of and policies fostering inclusion and respect for a diverse Indian demographic. Our diverse staff have access to flexible regional holidays more aligned to their religion/culture. We also support staff through inclusive policies such as a Salary Advance for financial emergencies, parental leave that goes beyond the law to enable parents in all situations (natural birth, adoption, miscarriages, etc.) to take time off equivalent to that enabled by Indian law for mothers, and gender-neutral prevention of sexual harassment (Indian law enables only women to register a complaint).

KER has engaged in a sustained, serious manner with children from diverse, historically underserved, minority groups. Our 7-member team consists entirely of TFI Fellow Alumni with lived experience of teaching disenfranchised students from challenging communities for two years. We continue to stay proximate to our mission and stakeholders: our team is “in the field” (program implementation, strategic retreats, site visits) for at least 30% of our time – and 70-80% for high-touch roles. We have also partnered with 100+ organizations from diverse constituencies – from rural public schools in Uttarakhand to the Delhi government; from nonprofits like Empty Hands Music to consultants like 4th Wheel Social Impact. This proximity and partnership ethos imbues our strategy and culture with diverse perspectives. Currently, TFI addresses four categories of diversity: (A) age, gender, sexual orientation; (B) marital and parental status; (C) socio-economic groups, religion, caste, language, geography; and (D) neurodiversity, and people with disabilities. TFI has benchmarked diversity across our Fellows, staff, and student communities to better understand our demographics, and what and how we need to change to enable each member to bring their whole self to work. In the context of the children we serve, diversity continues to mean entering as many low-income communities across regions, religions, and languages as possible, while fostering classroom environments that embody inclusion and equity by catering to diverse learning needs, fostering a collaborative environment, and bringing new, elevated opportunities to marginalized children.

Part of a non-profit that does not monetise services, our KER School business model is as follows:

Key resources: 

• Technology (Learning Management System, WhatsApp)

• People (KER School team, external partners, students)

• Access to database of stakeholders (students, teachers, schools, non-profit partners)

Partners and Key stakeholders: 

• Our seven-year network of 100,000+ KER student “Revolutionaries” and educators, who will help scale this to reach more children from their own networks.

• 850 TFI Fellows (teachers) across 220 schools in India

• Non-TFI teachers, and school and institution leaders (leveraging existing and new partnerships to reach more children)

• Technical experts to guide our content, design, and technology (e.g. BRND to build the UI/UX for KER School, and a design agency to visually design the product)

• TFI’s technology team to build the product

Key activities and type of intervention:

• Outreach to students, schools and organizations to pitch KER School and onboard partners.

• Students create user profiles through the chatbot to access a vast repository of resources that enables growth in leadership skills.

• Track student engagement, growth, and user behavior for monitoring and evaluation.

• The chatbot nudges users to practice learned skills, providing opportunities for impact through collaborative problem-solving and small, actionable steps.

• As users progress, they are presented with rewards (e.g. inclusion in a student leader community, badges like ‘Champion of the Collective’, ‘Change Agent’)

• This community is anchored by our previous Revolutionaries through local chapters, convening students for weekly, online, peer-led learning.

• As students complete all levels, they deepen their leadership abilities. They will also receive a certificate to celebrate their journey.

• For student leaders who choose to continue engagement, our in-person programs will be presented as electives. With a deeper understanding of global challenges and their role in solving them, students will choose electives that best align with their interests.

Channels and Segments: 

• Segment of 100,000+ students and teachers globally

• TFI schools, non-TFI schools, and TFI’s non-profit partners (e.g. REAP Benefit, Museum of Solutions)

• Partner countries within the 62-member Teach For All network.

• Social media community (1.5 million users across TFI’s platforms) through marketing campaigns, and embedding within wider KER and TFI programmes.

• Primary channel for program delivery: WhatsApp and Learning Management System.

Value proposition:

• Opportunity to realise our vision for students, built on TFI’s four pillars of leadership development.

• To develop fully as leaders, children need to understand the Self, work to positively impact Others, and become engaged citizens for a better India & World. As children internalize and embody skills such as the 8Cs (codified and implemented first by KER and then TFI) in their day-to-day lives, they succeed within the existing system and become prepared to navigate a dynamic world beyond school.

• Open source for any school or individual to adopt, without subscriptions or monetary exchanges.

Cost structure and funding:

• A budget of USD 15,000 for 2024-25 to design and build the product, pilot implementation, run maintenance, support teams and resources.

• Plan to secure funding through philanthropic grants and prizes such as MIT Solve.

The KER programme is run by Teach For India, a registered non-profit organization. For 15 years, Teach For India has been successfully raising 100% of its growing funding needs for all its programmes through multiple diversified sources:

• Our Board of Directors/Trustees (high-net-worth individuals)

• Reputed corporate partners (e.g. HSBC, JSW)

• Global and local Foundations/Trusts (e.g. Michael and Susan Dell Foundation)

• Individuals and philanthropists 

• Retail fundraising platforms (e.g. Global Giving, Give India)

• Our independent, mission-aligned 501c3 partner, Teach For India U.S.

KER, launched in 2017, has been successfully and fully funded throughout its history, even as it has grown to drive impact at scale, and many funders have chosen to renew their partnerships. Supporters of KER have included such reputable and diverse funders as JSW, Salesforce Foundation, Godrej, BNP Paribas' Dream Up, and Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.

In 2024-25, KER’s budget is approximately USD 307,000 (subject to final approvals from our board) and KER School’s budget is approximately USD 15,000. To raise these funds, we will continue to seek funding from these sources as well as apply to awards such as MIT Solve that will not only power KER School with financial capital but also intellectual and social capital that can accelerate our mission and unlock new networks for greater impact.

Teach For India continues to receive 70% of its funding in restricted forms (e.g. CSR grants), which prove challenging when directing investments to innovative programmes, pilots, and our leadership. MIT’s recognition of KER School’s potential for impact through this prize, along with the $10,000 grant and qualification for additional funding through prizes like the GSR Foundation Prize, will enable us to flexibly fund 65%-100% of costs for KER School in 2024-25 to realise the full potential of our programme and have the greatest impact on vulnerable, hard-to-reach children across India, and beyond.