Our Partners

Implementing Partners/Education Providers

‘The amount and nature of engagement with the children kept changing dynamically during COVID-19 lockdowns. The DIB has been learning curve of adaptability and scalability. Building solutions was a gradual process – collecting data, measurement, creating design projects and the final impact. How do we keep up with this dynamic sector? How do we adjust to the changing environment? We implemented various solutions from providing learning material to children at their homes, phone-based engagement by teachers, engaging children in small groups at their homes, engaging children in small groups in community classrooms through TV-based video lessons. DIBs, with its outcome focussed approach, act as that innovative tool that has enabled and strengthened our ability to adapt and learn‘

Prof Pankaj Jain, CEO

‘I consider myself a DIBs convert, and it was its result-oriented approach that changed my mindset. The idea that we have the freedom to be flexible in our tools and inputs, with a focus on not HOW we derive those outcomes, but that we achieve those outcomes eventually, is what made me see DIBs in a different light. At the end of four years, we are happy and proud of having been part of the change journey of 216 schools across two blocks. We made a difference to the lives of 50,000+ students, 1,500+ teachers, 200+ Headmasters and 300+ volunteers!‘

Aditya Natraj, Founder, Kaivalya Education Foundation & CEO, Piramal Foundation

‘The QEI DIBs journey was a learning of patience, collaboration and sharing best practices to strengthen one another (and therefore the system), enabled by our performance manager, Dalberg.

Prem Yadav, Co-founder and CEO

Read about Gyan Shala's Intervention

Read about KEF's Intervention

Read about the Pratham Infotech Foundation's Intervention

‘COVID-19 disrupted many plans in this project, but the adaptive nature of DIBs is what led us through. SARD was very fortunate to be nominated as a nodal agency by the North and South Municipal Corporation of Delhi to minimize the learning loss among children and teachers. SARD developed interactive content related to Maths and Language through audio, videos, and puzzles aligned with the school curriculum which was later approved by the Ministry of Education, Govt. of India. SARD also mobilized immediate support to 500 children and their families who lost their family members and around 800 children benefited from North& South Municipal Corporation Schools through dry ration, and support to the families with covid/chronic illness. SARD also mobilized support through stationery to 25,000 children, tablets, and computer devices for teachers and mentors who were developing content through DIB partners.’

Sudhir Bhatnagar, CEO

‘DIBs accelerate change through scalability. Whilst focussed on setting high benchmarks, this project was a deeply empathetic process, and therefore a truly path breaking journey. What stood out the most was the significance of building trust between our group of partners which really was the secret to its success. ’

Ritesh Agarwal, AVP

Read about SARD's Intervention

Read about Educational Initiatives's Intervention

Investor

‘We are extremely pleased with the learning results achieved. Outcomes based financing programmes are clearly showing their ability to drive impact at scale and this programme has been an excellent proof point for that. This should send a strong signal to funders interested in achieving more and better outcomes not only in education, but in other areas as well.‘

Dhun Davar, Head of Social Finance

Convener & Intermediary

‘The QEI DIB learnings highlight the opportunity to shape our education systems and change life outcomes for a whole generation. It is evidence that outcomes-based financing models like DIBs can successfully improve learning. There are new solutions for difficult social problems and ways to create greater impact from every unit of money spent. This radical approach was the first of this size for the education sector in South Asia and has proved itself as a compelling model for a more effective approach to philanthropy at scale.   

Now more than ever we need to test and create models which help mitigate the devastating learning losses from COVID-19, but also find cost effective ways to finance them and make them scalable. The future of education in India looks promising, but we need to engage the government, funders and policy makers to act now if we really want to drive change at scale.’

Abha Thorat-Shah, Executive Director Social Finance

Anchor Funder

‘The success of the QEI DIB shows how outcome-linked models can bring efficiency and transparency to India’s education system. The program has generated rich evidence over the last four years to demonstrate how children learn when supported by the right teaching practices, technology and school environment. These data sets can be used by the ecosystem, including state governments and other funders to structure high performing programs that will help millions of children in India thrive in school.’

Samar Bajaj, Director for India Programs

Outcome Evaluator

‘Outcomes assessment is at the heart of the DIB – a small, but crucial piece that quantifies impact achieved.’

Sowmya Velayudham, CEO

Performance Manager

‘We are extremely pleased with the results. The outcome targets that we set initially were not only exceeded, they were exceeded by a large margin. The Education partners also improved on the outcomes their programmes had historically seen before QEI DIB. This makes a strong case for continuing to link funding to outcomes as opposed to inputs or activities.‘

Gagandeep Nanda, Associate Partner

Corporate Partner

‘Children’s learning outcomes are important to BT in India because we want to help empower the workforce of tomorrow. We’re very proud to be the sole corporate partner on the Quality Education India Development Impact Bond.’

Andy Wales, Chief Digital Impact & Sustainability Officer

Supported By

‘We are delighted to see the exceptional results achieved by the QEI DIB for school children in India. To have achieved this in such a challenging period is testament to the ingenuity, determination and commitment of the service providers, the expertise of the British Asian Trust and the flexibility and understanding of the funders and investors. The success of the DIB demonstrates the potential of progressive funding models to build cross-sector global partnerships to achieve social change at scale.‘

Tom Colborne, Social Investment Manager

‘We know that the quality of education provided for the world’s poorest is at crisis point. Focusing on learning outcomes ensures that the interventions and changes needed are properly targeted to generate clear results.’

Richard Meredith, Director of Programmes

Knowledge & Technical Partners

‘Unlike some results-based financing models, the DIB avoids cash flow challenges because the investor provides working capital. The focus on outcomes also allows implementing partners to adapt, based on continuous learning of what works.’

Kay Lau, Senior Research Manager

‘The Quality Education India DIB is the largest impact bond for education globally and is interesting in that it combines multiple NGO implementing partners with a variety of interventions as well as multiple outcome funders.’

Emily Gustafsson-Wright, Fellow

Supporter

‘We are extremely excited to learn of the exceptional results achieved through the QEI DIB. It was our desire when we launched the very first impact bond in education (and the first DIB in the World!), that our learning would go on to seed bigger and better funding and a practitioner focus on true outcomes that matter to communities. It is heartening that the service providers had similar experiences to us in terms of dramatically improving the quality of what they can provide to their children and communities through ‘enabling’ funding that was both flexible and long term!’