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Contributor : Profile

Name Surname

Rukmini Banerji

Pratham
rukmini.banerji@pratham.org

Dr. Rukmini Banerji is the CEO of Pratham Education Foundation. Trained as an economist, Dr. Banerji completed her B.A. at St. Stephen’s College and attended the Delhi School of Economics (DSE). She was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and earned her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Banerji worked as a programme officer at the Spencer Foundation in Chicago for several years before returning to India in 1996 to join Pratham as part of the leadership team. There, she led the organisation’s research and assessment efforts, which have included the internationally acknowledged Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) since 2005, and served as director of the ASER Centre in New Delhi for 10 years.

In 2008, she was the inaugural recipient of the Maulana Abul Kalam Shiksha Puraskar Award conferred by the Government of Bihar, India. Over the years, she has represented Pratham and ASER Centre in various national and international forums and is a member of committees both in India and abroad. She writes frequently on education in India and enjoys creating books and stories for children.

Originally from Bihar, she now lives in New Delhi.

Posts by Rukmini Banerji

Tracking learning outcomes: ASER’s work through the pandemic

With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated lockdowns, schools quickly pivoted to online learning. However, there was limited information about whether children had access to learning m...

  • Videos

Tracking learning outcomes: ASER’s work through the pandemic

With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated lockdowns, schools quickly pivoted to online learning. However, there was limited information about whether children had access to learning m...

  • Podcasts

Covid-19 and schooling: 2020 experience and way forward

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic brought with it significant challenges for the education sector. On the one hand, closing schools meant imposing a heavy cost on a whole generation of students, and ...

  • Videos

प्रथम के साथ बैनर्जी और डुफ्लो का सफर

इस वर्ष अर्थशास्त्र के नोबेल पुरस्कार विजेता अभिजीत बनर्जी और एस्थर डुफ्लो ने 20 वर्षों से भी अधिक समयतक भारत में शिक्षा के क्षेत्र में काम करने वाले गैर सरकारी संस्थान ‘प्रथम’ के साथ कार्य किया है।सम...

  • दृष्टिकोण

Banerjee and Duflo’s journey with Pratham

This year’s economics Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo have worked closely with education NGO Pratham in India for more than 20 years. Over time, this unique partnership of research...

  • Perspectives

बुनियाद की मज़बूती: प्राथमिक शिक्षा की चुनौती

रुक्मिणी बनर्जी बताती हैं कि नई शिक्षा नीति का प्रारूप एक सही कदम के रूप में बच्चों की शुरुआती देख-रेख और शिक्षा के महत्व पर ज़ोर देता है। साथ ही, यह प्राथमिक स्तर पर बुनियादी साक्षरता व गणितीय क्षमता ...

  • दृष्टिकोण

Building foundations well: The challenge for primary education

Rukmini Banerji contends that the draft New Education Policy gets it right in emphasising the importance of Early Childhood Care and Education and the need to urgently work on establishing foundationa...

  • Perspectives

ASER 2018: Behind the headlines

Thanks to more than a decade of Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER), the main headlines from the surveys are widely known – the learning levels of Indian school going children are worryingly l...

  • Perspectives

Teaching at the right level: Solutions for low learning levels in India

At least half of all children in India have not acquired basic literacy and arithmetic skills by the end of primary school. In this article, Rukmini Banerji of Pratham and J-PAL Director Esther Duflo...

  • Articles

Introduction to e-Symposium: Ideas for reforms in education policy in India

A New Education Policy is being formulated in India based on a time-bound grassroots consultative process. As a contribution to the discussions, Rukmini Banerji of the education NGO Pratham and Ashok...

  • Symposium

Building a movement, assessment to action

While citizen-led assessments of children’s learning have been applauded for building awareness around the issue, observers have pointed out that information does not automatically galvanise action...

  • Notes from the Field

Taking education beyond educationists

ASER – Annual Status of Education Report – has been tracking learning outcomes of children in rural India for the past 10 years. In this note, Rukmini Banerji, Director of the ASER Centre/Pratham...

  • Notes from the Field