Pratham

In each city, corporate leaders work together with the government and schools as well as community volunteers to implement the Pratham programmes.
According to the Pratham website, the strategy for working towards education for all children includes the following activities:

• Balwadi Pre-School Program - Pratham has found that universalisation of pre-school education is an important strategy for achieving universalisation of primary education. Children with access to early childhood education have increased chances to go on to regular school. Moreover, the pre-school exposure enhances and strengthens the child's subsequent school performance, in terms of achievement and attendance. Located either at a municipal school, community space, place of worship or a teacher's home, this programme is designed for pre-school children in the 3-5 years age group and aims to expose unreached children from low-income families to early childhood education.
• Bridge Course Program - was designed with the assumption that a "bridge" needs to be built to prepare and support out-of-school children (of primary school age) socially and academically to enter or re-enter the formal school system. Designed for children in the 6-12 years age group who have never attended school or have dropped out, the programme uses informal methods of education, gradually moving towards a structured set-up and then placing the children in a formal school.
• Balsakhi Remedial Education Program - This programme is designed to help children who are identified by their class teachers as falling behind academically. The Balsakhi - child's friend - are community volunteers that are invited at the request of the head masters to work with with 20-30 children identified by the school teachers under the supervision/ guidance of school teachers.
• Akhar Setu Program - This programme was designed to address the difficulties in mainstreaming children who are working or supporting their parents economically and therefore unable to attend school, older children who cannot be admitted to there age specific class, and for children who have no schools nearby. Children in Akhar Setu are formally registered in a nearby government school with the rights and privileges similar to that of children regularly attending that government school. Regular classes are held in the community itself by Balsakhis. Children are allowed to participate in all the extra curricular activities of the school and all the children are required to take the exams conducted by the school and get their certificate from the school. The Head Master of the school to which the Akhar Setu is affiliated is required to make a periodic and/or random visit to this class and verify attendance once a month.
• Outreach Program - provides educational opportunities to child labourers, street children, pavement dwellers and children in conflict with law. Teaching and learning happens in places of work, on streets, pavements, railway platforms - wherever children want to learn. Unlike the other Pratham programmes, the outreach programme includes several sub-activities. Starting with a 'contact class' where a Pratham person develops a casual contact with children, the programme moves to hobby classes where children meet regularly. Many members of the hobby class then move to more serious 'study class'.
• Pratham Health - was started in Mumbai in August 1999, to tackle some of the most wide spread health problems among the Balwadi children namely anemia, worm, infestation and Vitamin A deficiency. Subsequently, in response to the felt needs of the communities served, two programmes for older children were introduced - Reach Out Program and Adolescent Family Life Education. Special Nutrition Education with cooking demonstrations and importance of locally available produce is imparted to the mothers in improving the malnourished status of their children. A programme for Balwadi children is also being implemented Delhi with the aim of assessing, among others, the effect of a medical intervention delivered through preschools on the educational outcomes, including preschool attendance rates, primary school entry rates, and academic test scores.
• Pratham Education Center - Pratham Education Centers (PECs) are organised where there no schools or the schools are already over-crowded. PECs bring together five bridge course classes in one location usually in a rented building with five bridge course teachers one of whom takes some additional administrative responsibilities. Currently, PECs operate in Patna (under a NOVIB-funded programme).
• Computer Assisted Learning - designed for municipal school children who have no access to computers and aims to familiarise primary school children with computers. Educational (math and language) games are introduced as a part of the school timetable in regional languages.

According to Pratham, an extensive network in the slum area enables Pratham to layer activities, such as health and computer education, at a minimum additional cost of delivery. It also gives the researchers and academicians an opportunity to collect primary data.

Education

"There are an estimated 140 million children in the age group 6 to 14 years in primary schools. Of these 30 million cannot read, 40 million can recognize a few alphabets, 40 million can read some words, and 30 million can read paragraphs. Over 55 million of these children will not complete four years of school, eventually adding to the illiterate population of India."

In 2000, The Global Development Network Award, sponsored by the World Bank / Government of Japan, was awarded to Pratham. Pratham was named as one of the top three "most innovative development projects."