Madhav Chavan

Madhav Chavan, born 1954, is a chemist by training who became one of India's most influential figures in basic education. He took his BSc and MSc in chemistry at the Institute of Science, Mumbai, and a doctorate in chemistry from Ohio State University in 1983, then taught at the University of Houston and at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai. His father, Yashwant Chavan, had founded the Lal Nishan Party, and Chavan's own turn to public work came in 1989 when he began working on adult literacy in Mumbai's slums under the National Literacy Mission. He also produced literacy programmes for Doordarshan and was invited to work on a UNICEF project teaching in the city's slums.

That UNICEF work led to Pratham, which he co-founded and has led as chief executive. His central contribution has been to shift the argument in Indian education from school enrolment to whether children can actually read and do arithmetic. He started the Read India campaign to teach basic reading, writing and arithmetic to children who were nominally in school but not learning, using short, intensive, volunteer-supported teaching rather than curriculum reform.

Chavan has also worked inside government machinery on the same question: he was a member of the National Advisory Council from 2004 to 2008, sits on the governing council of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Mission, and has served on four of its half-yearly joint review missions. Pratham has received the Kravis Prize and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and Chavan was awarded the WISE Prize for Education in 2012. He has written a book in Marathi, Sambhav.[2]