2022
Plenary Speech
Rukmini Banerji
Assessment to Action: Opportunities for India
India’s new education policy (NEP 2020) provides clear directions and goals for what we need to achieve as a county in the next few years. If we are successful in achieving foundational literacy and numeracy goals in primary school for most children, then we will be in a strong position to think about future progress. What do we know about foundational literacy in India so far – how do we measure it, how do we translate understanding of children’s realities into action. In order to build a strong foundational stage, assessment has to be linked to concrete action that is helpful to children and teachers to make progress together.
Rukmini Banerji has been with Pratham (www.pratham.org) since 1996. She has extensive field experience in program design and implementation and has led many of Pratham’s partnerships with state governments. Rukmini also led Pratham’s research activities, including the well-known Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) effort from 2005 to 2014 (www.asercentre.org). She became CEO of Pratham Education Foundation in July 2015. Initially trained as an economist in India, she did her B.A. at St. Stephen’s College and attended Delhi School of Economics. She was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. In 2008, Rukmini was awarded the Maulana Abul Kalam Shiksha Puraskar by the Government of Bihar. She was the first recipient of this award. Also, she is the 2021 Yidan Prize awardee for education development. Originally from Bihar, she is now based between New Delhi and Pune. Rukmini writes frequently on education in both Hindi and English and enjoys creating stories for children.