John Kurrien

Co-founder

Co-founder of Centre for Learning Resources

John Kurrien is the co-founder of Centre for Learning Resources (1984)[1], an Indian non-profit working on education from Pune.

John Kurrien was an Indian education researcher who co-founded the Centre for Learning Resources (CLR) in Pune in 1984 with Zakiya Kurrien. The centre works on early childhood education and primary schooling, developing teaching and learning materials and running teacher training and school improvement programmes with state governments and non-governmental organisations.

Early life and education

Kurrien took a PhD in education policy studies at the University of Wisconsin in the United States.

Career

Kurrien taught for seven years on the education faculty of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences before co-founding the Centre for Learning Resources in 1984. He served as co-director of CLR for close to three decades and later as director emeritus.

His work concentrated on the education of disadvantaged children in India. He wrote a book on elementary education in India, prepared a report for the World Bank on the education of poor girls and women, sat on several national-level committees, and wrote on the Right to Education Act and the National Education Policy in academic journals and the general press.[2][3]

Centre for Learning Resources

The Centre for Learning Resources (CLR) was founded in Pune in 1984 as a non-profit unit of The Society For Educational Improvement and Innovation, registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860 and the Bombay Public Trust Act 1950. It develops teaching-learning materials, children's literature and teacher training for early childhood and primary education.