Meghna Chawla

Meghna Chawla is bringing experiential learning to an estimated 30 million children in government schools in India. Through training and establishing a new pedagogical teaching approach for government schools in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Uttarakhand, she is empowering teachers to reimagine the learning journey in classrooms and move from rote learning to experiential learning. This new pedagogy provides an experiential learning approach that builds empathy and problem-solving, enabling children to have an increased application and understanding of concepts taught from subjects in class and better future employability potential.

Meghna Chawla's initiative through the Foster and Forge Foundation is revolutionizing education for over 30 million children in low-income government schools in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Uttarakhand. Her approach introduces experiential learning, a method more effective than traditional rote learning, especially crucial in public education where innovation has been limited.

In India, the disparity in education is stark. A Stanford Social Innovation study revealed that 60% of children in government schools don’t pursue education beyond the 8th grade. In contrast, only a few have the privilege of completing high school and higher education. Meghna believes that relying solely on rote learning is a disservice to the majority who don’t continue their education. These children, often from low-income households, get only one chance at quality education.

Addressing this gap, Meghna and her friend Shweta devised FLUX (Feel, Learn, Use, Explore), an experiential learning methodology. FLUX aims to infuse storytelling, gamification, and collaboration into classrooms to enhance students’ understanding and problem-solving skills. While building on established practices, it was also a low-cost and infrastructure-light solution, making it viable for widespread adoption in public schools across the country.

Meghna understood the pivotal role of teachers in this transformation. Through the Beacon Educator Fellowship, she has trained over 700,000 government schoolteachers in the FLUX method over two years and built a partnership with the State government to identify influential teachers in each district. These 'Beacon' teachers first adopt and test FLUX, helping to refine and contextualize it for their respective regions. The resulting blueprint is then used by the government to train all state teachers, ensuring a consistent and effective approach.

The Fellowship empowers these select teachers to lead research and innovation in FLUX pedagogy. They co-create the implementation strategies, lending credibility and relevance to the approach. The government then integrates FLUX into the curriculum for grades 1 to 8, transforming the learning experience from abstract textbook learning to a dynamic, experiential, and collaborative environment. This shift aims to foster a learning culture where students engage with real-life examples and applications, moving away from the competitive environment bred by traditional methods.

Foster and Forge has spread to 700,000 teachers, and Meghna currently has Memorandums of Understanding with four state governments, working to expand the adoption of FLUX learning and the Beacon Fellowship across India.

In India, there are currently 9.7 million schoolteachers, as highlighted by a UNESCO study. However, equipping this vast and growing teacher population with innovative teaching methods remains a significant challenge, particularly in rural areas. Traditional teaching materials, syllabus, and teacher training methods have remained largely unchanged since the early 2000s.

The Annual Status on Education Report reveals a troubling statistic: less than 22 percent of fifth-grade students can perform at their grade level in literacy and numeracy. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this problem, with schools closed for two years. While there is a current emphasis on foundational learning in India, aimed at improving basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, the issue of rote learning and poor conceptual understanding persists. Meghna aims to build upon the current focus on foundational learning, advocating for an experiential pedagogical approach that bridges the gap between learning and actual knowledge.

Addressing the shortcomings of public education often involves high budgets and infrastructure-intensive programs. In contrast, Meghna’s strategy is both low-cost and minimally dependent on infrastructure. Its effectiveness lies in its ability to be disseminated to all schoolteachers through initiatives like the Beacon Fellowship and integrated into existing government training programs. Meghna believes that addressing systemic issues such as poor learning outcomes and the need to prepare children as problem solvers can be most effectively achieved when teachers are empowered to be innovators and agents of change. The Beacon Fellowship is a step towards this goal, encouraging teachers to redefine the nature of classroom learning.

Meghna recognized a critical flaw in the Indian education system: the prevalence of rote learning. This approach emphasizes memorization over understanding and fosters a highly competitive environment focused on grades. This has led to a situation where many students in government schools fail to grasp concepts adequately. This issue is reflected in India's low literacy and numeracy rates and the high unemployment among youth, stemming from a lack of essential skills. With her background in teaching, Meghna identified teachers as key players in initiating a systemic shift.

The Foster & Forge Foundation (FNF) employs an innovative, multi-faceted strategy to drive sustainable transformation within India's public education system. At the core of this strategy is a collaborative approach that empowers teachers as agents of change and leverages their insights to develop locally relevant, experiential learning models. The ultimate goal is to replace prevalent rote learning methods with engaging, hands-on pedagogies that unlock student potential across India's diverse educational landscape.

The cornerstone of FNF's approach is the Beacon Educator Fellowship, a two-year program that identifies and trains dedicated government schoolteachers in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Uttarakhand. These "Beacon" teachers become champions of the FLUX pedagogy, an experiential learning model that emphasizes hands-on discovery, real-world applications, and classroom collaboration. The FLUX pedagogy is so effective because of its strictly pedagogical approach to teaching. Not requiring any materials, technology, or infrastructure, the FLUX pedagogy can be adopted as an experiential learning approach in the most remote schools of India. FLUX gives the teacher a framework to take the concepts from the syllabus and connect it to real life examples and applications. The students are then asked to discuss and participate in group activities that help them connect with the concept being learned.

Through intensive training, Beacon Fellows not only learn to implement FLUX effectively but also gain skills in curriculum design, problem-solving, and inclusive teaching practices. This comprehensive professional development equips them to become "frontline innovators" – driving reform from within their own classrooms and influencing broader systemic changes.

A critical aspect of FNF's strategy is the codification process, wherein Beacon Fellows collaborate with FNF experts and state education officials to develop a contextualized blueprint for FLUX implementation. This collaborative approach ensures that the FLUX model is not only consistent but also locally adapted to address the diverse cultural, socioeconomic, and linguistic needs of students across the states. By actively involving teachers in this codification process, FNF harnesses their on-the-ground insights and expertise, fostering a sense of ownership and increasing the likelihood of successful adoption. The resulting blueprint serves as a comprehensive roadmap for scaling FLUX across the entire state education system. Crucially, these Beacon Fellows become powerful advocates for FLUX, demonstrating its effectiveness to their peers, teachers' unions, and governmental bodies. This "show, not tell" approach builds trust and credibility, facilitating wider adoption and support for the experiential learning model.

Beyond equipping individual Beacon teachers, FNF's strategy aims to create a growing network of innovative educators committed to systemic change. This network provides ongoing professional development, peer support, and opportunities for knowledge sharing, ensuring the long-term sustainability of the FLUX model.

To achieve lasting, large-scale impact, FNF recognizes the importance of strategic partnerships and systemic integration. FNF has formed Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with state education departments of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Uttarakhand, which ensures official government endorsement and buy-in for the FLUX approach across the entire state’s public education system.

This collaboration facilitates the integration of FLUX into pre-service and in-service teacher training programs, laying the foundation for its widespread adoption as the standard pedagogical practice across the state. By embedding FLUX into the core education system, FNF aims to create a self-sustaining cycle of effective, engaging teaching best practices and continually innovating to ensure that low-cost effective experiential learning approaches can be adopted into Indian public schools. Teachers meet together in monthly connect groups to share learnings from the classroom and effective approaches to teaching various subjects.

Underpinning FNF's strategy is a commitment to rigorous evaluation and data-driven decision-making. Independent randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have demonstrated significant gains in student learning outcomes, with 70% of students in Beacon Fellowship classrooms achieving grade-level literacy and numeracy – a remarkable improvement over the national average of 22%. These quantitative results are complemented by qualitative assessments that capture the experiences of teachers and students, who report a 48% learning outcome improvement from the program's impact. This evidence-based approach not only validates the efficacy of FNF's strategy but also informs continuous improvement efforts, ensuring the model remains relevant and effective as it scales.

By prioritizing teacher empowerment, collaborative innovation, strategic partnerships, and evidence-based decision-making, FNF's strategy addresses the complexities inherent in educational reform. Its holistic approach tackles systemic challenges from multiple angles, fostering an environment conducive to lasting, sustainable change.

As FNF's work continues to expand across India, its commitment to rigorous evaluation and adaptation will ensure that its strategy evolves to meet the diverse needs of students, teachers, and communities. Through this comprehensive, collaborative approach, FNF aims to transform India's education landscape, unlocking the potential of millions of students and equipping them with the skills and mindsets necessary to thrive in an ever-changing world.

Meghna Chawla's upbringing was deeply influenced by her father's career in national defense, leading to frequent relocations across India due to his assignments in the armed forces. This lifestyle instilled in her a strong sense of patriotism and respect for government institutions. During these family shifts, Meghna attended various government-run schools, where she gained first-hand insights into the vast scope of the educational system, as well as its deficiencies and potential solutions.

Her early adult life was spent in Russia and parts of Europe, accompanying her husband for his career. During this period, Meghna worked as a schoolteacher and observed the universal benefits of experiential learning. She noted how this approach fostered empathy and problem-solving skills in children. Returning to India, she was struck by the contrast with the Indian rote learning system, which emphasized memorization over understanding, placing undue pressure on children to achieve high scores without truly comprehending the material.

Feeling a deep responsibility to contribute to societal change, particularly for India's most disadvantaged children, Meghna decided to take action. Supported by her husband and Shweta, her collaborator in developing FLUX, she left her position at a private school to start her NGO. Her goal was to empower students through experiential learning, focusing on change-making, empathy, and problem-solving skills.

Meghna believed that lasting change had to start in the classroom and be accessible to all. She envisioned a model that wasn't hindered by budget constraints or infrastructural limitations. The FLUX approach and the Beacon Educator Fellowship were born from this vision, offering a cost-effective, easy-to-adopt, and impactful model. What began as a passion project between 2013 and 2015 has now expanded into a robust organization, Foster & Forge, with over 40 employees. It boasts long-term Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Uttarakhand, impacting schools throughout these regions.