‘We aim to create small scale, low-cost practices in teaching or school management’

Sharath Jeevan, CEO and Founder, STIR Education

How was STIR founded?  
STIR was founded in Delhi in 2012 with an ambition to provide quality education to students by empowering teachers and principals. We aim to identify, test and scale ‘micro-innovations’ – low-cost (and often no-cost), scalable, teacher-led practices that have the potential, if shared widely, to make a significant positive impact on student learning.
What are the strategies implemented by STIR to address the issue of quality education in India?
We aim to approach this problem in two ways.
First, we have created a platform for finding, testing and scaling the most promising ‘micro-innovations’ – small scale, low cost practices in teaching or school management practices, directly from teachers and principals. This year our search process will cover over 1,500 schools across the country and we work with over 50 organisational partners – ranging from Pratham to the Bharti Foundation to the Indian and Delhi governments – to scale innovations up. For example, a student motivation innovation – which rewarded students for achieving strong performance in specific skill areas – has been scaled up by the Bharti Foundation
Secondly, we aim to create India’s largest independent network of committed and innovative teachers. These networks involve regular meetings where teachers can discuss problems they are facing, adapt and implement these micro-innovations to solve problems, and see tangible results on educational outcomes for their children. By ensuring that the best micro-innovations from within local communities are uncovered, this approach ensures that local problems are met with the best locally relevant, teacher-driven solutions.
Over the next three years in India we aim to impact 12,000 teachers in STIR and partner-supported networks across the country. We also hope to touch a further 28,000 teachers through the scale-up of the micro-innovations identified. Overall, STIR therefore seeks to impact over a million children and create India’s largest network of committed and innovative teachers.”
What are the challenges faced while implementing those strategies in India?
There is often a lot of skepticism and cynicism in India about teachers. While some of this is justified (e.g. one in four teachers is typically absent on a given school day), we strongly believe that there is a critical mass of teachers across the country that are committed and want to improve outcomes for their children. We also believe that many more are inherently committed and care deeply, but have become disillusioned and jaded down with the system. By using recognition and non-financial incentives (such as certification) for teachers to voluntarily join our innovation networks, we believe we can bring energy to this group of teachers and also ‘infect’ and encourage others to join also. Most of all, we believe that if teachers can meet like-minded peers who share the same beliefs and dedication – and if we can provide practical help by suggesting innovations that can make a practical difference to schools – then there can be an enormous impact on the teaching profession, and on how teachers are viewed more broadly by society.
Are you planning to expand your workforce in India?
Yes. We are currently 11 staff in India and hope to grow this to about 60 over the next three years. However, we always want to be a lean organisation relative to the impact we hope to stimulate. We achieve most of our impact through supporting and empowering our partners and our networks,
What talent and skills do you look for in candidates willing to join your organisation?
We look for the right attitude. Do the candidates care about education and specifically about our mission? Are they resilient and can they cope with difficult and unexpected challenges? Do they enjoy meeting with and working with a very wide range of stakeholders – on a typical day they might be meeting a government official, a teacher, a partner and a funder. In terms of skills, communication skills and project management skills are probably the most important. But overall, we are looking for people who are versatile, who enjoy stretching themselves and taking themselves out of their own comfort zones, in an exciting and fast paced entrepreneurial environment.


Hi guys If u like this post please leave a comment in comment box... comment box will top right of every post and bottom of every post. its useful for me give a better information.. if u want to give any suggestion in bottom of blog there is contact information option please leave a msgs with u r mail id sure i will get u.