Our Founder Sharath Jeevan was born in India. He was frustrated to learn that the Indian government had built one million new schools, but its children were not thriving and learning. It seemed teachers were seen as the problem, not the solution, which he didn’t believe to be true. So he started STiR to change that narrative.
WHO WE ARE
STiR Education is an international NGO with 65 staff in seven global locations.
WHY WE'RE DOING THIS WORK
Education systems today must prepare every child, everywhere, to thrive in an increasingly complex world.
OUR STORY
We began as a small pilot with 25 teachers in Delhi. At that point we were focused on finding promising ‘micro-innovations’ from teachers. The pilot taught us that this focus was misplaced – but by complete accident, our interactions with teachers reignited their intrinsic motivation.
This wasn’t a brilliant insight from us. It came from teachers picking up the phone and calling our small office to tell us we had (no pun intended) stirred something in them they hadn’t felt for a long time. Namely, their love of teaching. Our office phone didn’t stop ringing for days.
Eventually we were forced to run an experiment. We hired a wedding hall on the outskirts of Delhi and invited 400 teachers to attend. We had hoped that as many as 80 might join us. But 340 showed up – many with their own children in tow so we had to set up a makeshift crèche.
This trial gave us the confidence that focusing on teacher networks and intrinsic motivation was right.
We began as a small pilot with 25 teachers in Delhi. At that point we were focused on finding promising ‘micro-innovations’ from teachers. The pilot taught us that this focus was misplaced – but by complete accident, our interactions with teachers reignited their intrinsic motivation.
This wasn’t a brilliant insight from us. It came from teachers picking up the phone and calling our small office to tell us we had (no pun intended) stirred something in them they hadn’t felt for a long time. Namely, their love of teaching. Our office phone didn’t stop ringing for days.
Eventually we were forced to run an experiment. We hired a wedding hall on the outskirts of Delhi and invited 400 teachers to attend. We had hoped that as many as 80 might join us. But 340 showed up – many with their own children in tow so we had to set up a makeshift crèche.
This trial gave us the confidence that focusing on teacher networks and intrinsic motivation was right.
Another major pivot happened in 2016 when the government of Delhi asked us to move from supporting 70 schools to all 1,025 schools across the state – with a mere three-month transition. This nerve-racking move paved the way for our government learning partnerships, where officials run and manage the approach with our support. It was a huge success that drives how we work with partner governments today.
There are many examples like this over the past few years. But key to our success thus far has been our openness to feedback – and the realisation that we don’t have all the answers upfront. Our journey has been tough and bumpy, with lots of pivots and changes to get where we are now. But what a journey it has been.
We’ve grown our impact from 25 teachers in Delhi to 200,000 teachers across India and Uganda. And we still have a long way to go to reach our 2030 goal of 10 million teachers and 300 million children. But we know that we will get there – guided by our values – by continuing to learn and adapt every step of the way.