In a world racing toward digital futures and AI-driven classrooms, the most basic human skill — the ability to read, write, and reason — still eludes hundreds of millions. The paradox is striking: nations speak of innovation while children leave school without understanding a simple sentence. At the heart of this quiet crisis lies a question not of capacity, but of dignity — and few have confronted it as directly as Dr. Sunita Gandhi, Founder & President, DEVI Sansthan (Dignity Education Vision International).
Having stepped away from a global career at the World Bank, Dr. Gandhi returned to India’s classrooms to ask why traditional schooling was failing its learners. Her answer came not through policy reform but through practice — ALfA (Accelerating Learning for All), a radical pedagogy that empowers children and adults to learn from and with one another. Built on peer dialogue, joyful engagement, and the belief that every learner is a teacher, ALfA has transformed foundational literacy from a slow, linear process into one that delivers results within weeks.
Today, ALfA’s success resonates across states and countries, redefining how education systems think about pace, participation, and purpose. In this conversation with TheCSRUniverse, Dr. Gandhi reflects on the science of accelerated learning, the moral urgency of literacy, and why she believes CSR and philanthropic leaders must see education not as charity, but as the first step toward human equality and lasting social change.
Read the full interview below.
Q&A
Q. You began your career at the World Bank and then chose to return to India to work at the grassroots on education and literacy. What was the defining moment that led you to make this shift from global policy to ground-level action, and how has that decision shaped DEVI Sansthan’s philosophy of “learning with dignity”?
A. I returned because the impact felt too distant from the policy table. At the World Bank I saw how well-meaning reforms can stall if classroom realities are ignored. I also come from a family of educators—City Montessori School is the world’s largest school—so the pull to serve every child was strong. The defining moment was facing the fact that more than half of Grade 5 children still cannot read, which makes “education as entitlement” more than a slogan. I chose to start at the ground, prove change in real classrooms, and let evidence travel upward to policy. That decision shaped Devi Sansthan—Dignity Education Vision International—around one core idea: learning restores dignity, and dignity demands that the last-mile learner comes first.
Q. Your Accelerating Learning for All (ALfA) model challenges long-held assumptions about how children and adults acquire literacy and numeracy. What were the insights—scientific, cognitive, or human—that inspired ALfA’s development, and how does it differ from conventional remedial or accelerated-learning models in both design and outcomes?
A. ALfA began with a simple question: if learners already speak the language, why should a handful of letters and matras hold them back from reading? We flip the sequence. We start with familiar pictures from the child’s world, derive the first sounds, and blend two or three sounds into words so reading comes before formal letter drills. The classroom flow is peer-led in pairs while the teacher facilitates, so time on task rises and engagement stays high. Materials are ultra-lean—visual, thin booklets that learners can use anywhere and at flexible times—so access is not hostage to infrastructure.
The design bakes in collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity, and the pace is intentionally brisk to leverage focus and neuroplasticity. The outcome we target is clear and near-term: beginners start reading in about a month, with visible gains in fluency.
Q. Many education programmes still focus on distributing materials or building infrastructure, while DEVI’s approach centres on measurable learning outcomes. What evidence best demonstrates ALfA’s success in achieving rapid foundational literacy and numeracy, and how do you ensure rigour and quality when scaling this model across diverse geographies and facilitators?
A. We test, compare, and open our data. In August 2022 in Shamli, Uttar Pradesh, we randomly selected 20 schools, split into 10 ALfA and 10 comparison schools, ran a common baseline, implemented ALfA for roughly 40–45 days, and then ran a post-test. The ALfA schools outperformed, including in reading fluency, with gains about twice those of the comparison group.
Findings have been reviewed alongside government partners and external experts, and we routinely include DIETs and officials in assessment and classroom observation. Rigour comes from simple, auditable routines: short cycles, frequent checks, paired work, and facilitator training focused on enabling—not delivering—learning. Cost stays low because booklets are thin and often shared, math can be taught with four or five sheets to Grade 3 level, and sessions can run under a tree as easily as in a classroom. These features let us scale quickly from the initial 20 schools in 2022 to large state-level implementations, with thousands of schools active today, while keeping quality visible and outcomes measurable.
Q. Despite strong policy intent through NEP 2020 and NIPUN Bharat, India continues to face serious gaps in foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN). From your field experience, what systemic barriers—curricular rigidity, teacher preparation, or administrative inertia—need to be dismantled first? If you had to recommend one transformative shift to policymakers, what would it be?
A. The real challenge in achieving FLN is not policy intent but pedagogy. NEP 2020 and NIPUN Bharat clearly recognize that without foundational learning, education loses its purpose. Yet, despite strong intent and tireless teacher efforts, outcomes remain weak because our teaching methods have not changed enough.
Curriculum rigidity and unrealistic assumptions, like expecting children to enter Grade 1 already able to read create a major disconnect between policy and classroom reality. We continue using the same textbooks and approaches when the focus should be solely on literacy and numeracy in the early years.
Teacher preparation is another key issue, not in terms of effort, but in the kind of training provided. What we need is training aligned with modern, evidence-based pedagogy such as ALfA (Accelerated Learning for All), which has proven that children can learn faster and more joyfully when teaching methods tap into their interests.
The next policymaker should think over this and see the impact through data, not opinions. We are saying: just do a 45-day pilot with four schools, some as intervention and some as control. In 45 days, you will know which way to go. And I think that is worth investing in and I am not even talking in terms of money, because we often do it for free.
We are simply asking governments to come in, jump in, and try it out. Wherever this has been tried, we have scaled tremendously from a handful of schools in Uttar Pradesh to 7,500 schools now all because of that first pilot, which was validated by Harvard University.
Q. You’ve often said that literacy is not just about reading but about reclaiming dignity and agency. Could you share a story where achieving foundational learning translated into deeper social or economic empowerment, particularly for women or marginalised learners? What does this reveal about the true power of education in community transformation?
A. For learning, the willingness has to come from within.Think about how mobiles became so popular. It wasn’t through force or persuasion. People started using them and realized how helpful they were. But getting someone to use it for the first time can still be a big hurdle and that’s especially true for adult literacy.
Many adults, particularly older women, are just not willing to invest years or even months, to learn something as basic as writing their own name. They think, What’s the point now? I’ve managed all my life without it. But what if I tell you that you can learn to write your name and sign it not in six months or a year, but in one week?
I’ve done this myself and seen the change it brings. It’s phenomenal. Just the ability to sign your own name instead of using a thumb impression gives people a sense of pride, of dignity. And the most powerful part is that it doesn’t take long. The moment they see that they can read a few words on the very first day, their face lights up. They realize, Oh, I can do this. That moment that shift from I can’t to I can is where real empowerment begins.
Many adult learners, especially women, start with this deep belief that they’re not capable, that learning is for others. But when they experience even a small success, their confidence just soars. And that’s when transformation starts not because someone taught them, but because they felt their own capacity.
We often underestimate the power of dignity. As people who’ve always had the privilege of education, we sometimes, even unintentionally, make others feel less capable. But when you restore that sense of dignity, it becomes a propelling force.
They start to lift themselves socially, emotionally, even economically.
So, yes, literacy is not just about reading or writing. It’s about reclaiming one’s agency, confidence, and dignity. Once that spark is lit, people don’t need to be pushed. They pull their own lives forward. All they need is a chance and that’s what true education should give.
Q. As ALfA expands through NGOs, CSR initiatives, and government programmes across India and several countries, how do you maintain fidelity to its core principles while adapting to local contexts? What are the non-negotiables that preserve learning quality and what elements do you allow to evolve with scale?
A. So, this is something we think about a lot because as ALfA expands, the question is always, how do we grow without losing the essence of what makes it work? For us, fidelity to the core is non-negotiable. The moment you lose that, the program becomes something else.
Now, what are those non-negotiables? I’d say first and foremost, the peer learning model children work in pairs. That is absolutely at the heart of ALfA. It’s what ensures equity, inclusion, and engagement. The second is the sequence of learning the way the program builds from known to unknown, simple to complex, in a way that makes learning effortless and joyful. The third is the spirit of inclusion that every child, regardless of ability, learns together. We don’t stream or separate; we integrate. These are things we will never compromise on.
But at the same time, ALfA has always been designed to adapt, not impose. The method is universal, but the content can and must change the language, the local examples, the stories, the cultural references all of which should evolve to fit the context. So, while the principles remain the same, the surface layer can look completely different in Ghana, in Peru, or in Uttar Pradesh. And that’s how it should be.
Another non-negotiable for us is data we always collect. Whether it’s a small pilot or a state-level implementation, there must be monitoring, evaluation, and third-party validation. That’s what keeps quality intact as scale grows.
So, to put it simply ALfA’s bones stay the same, but the clothes can change. The child-to-child learning, the joy, the inclusivity, the speed of learning those are sacred. But how you bring it alive in a classroom in Ghana or Himachal or Peru that’s where local partners bring their creativity. That balance between fidelity and flexibility is what keeps ALfA both authentic and alive.
Q. DEVI Sansthan’s work spans collaborations with governments, corporates, and civil-society organisations. What lessons have you learned about what makes partnerships in education succeed or fail? What practical steps should CSR leaders take to move beyond short-term project cycles toward genuine, system-level transformation in education?
A. Partnerships in education often fail because stakeholders, governments, corporates, and civil society tend to work in silos with limited communication or shared understanding. True collaboration requires knowing what others are doing and aligning efforts instead of duplicating them. When that happens, collective clarity and impact increase tremendously.
CSR, in particular, can be a powerful catalyst, like the leaven that helps the bread rise. Even small contributions, when directed wisely, can strengthen community efforts and drive large-scale change.
However, many CSR initiatives still focus on short-term projects or areas chosen without aligning to national priorities. The current top priority, as identified by the Government of India, is foundational literacy and numeracy. CSR leaders need to align their efforts here and invest more deeply in research and evidence-building.
A major gap today is the lack of independent, large-scale data on what truly works. CSR can help bridge this by funding third-party evaluations and developing common parameters to assess impact across initiatives. Once such data exists, it will guide policy and practice far more effectively than individual success stories.
We need more third-party evidence gathering, more data, more scrutiny not just taking things at face value or supporting what feels good or what our opinions tell us. We have to look at what’s actually working and then back that.
In our own case, for instance, we’re talking about a 45-day intervention where you get results immediately not after years. So a fresh research study around such short, high-impact interventions would be extremely helpful. Along with that, compiling existing research, double-checking it, and validating it again would add tremendous value.
So, to sum up, partnerships will work when we move from opinions to evidence, from individual silos to shared learning, and from short-term projects to system-level change. And CSR can play a huge catalytic role in making that happen.
Q. With ALfA now reaching learners in over 20 countries, what global insights have you gained about the universality—or contextuality—of how people learn? In your view, can India lead a new Global South movement around learning equity, where literacy becomes as urgent and measurable a goal as health or climate?
And what role do you see for the CSR community in making this vision a reality?
A. Having visited and studied education systems in over 50 countries, I can say with confidence that the learning crisis is universal. Whether in the Global South or the West, the story is the same, children, even in Grade 4, struggle to read and comprehend. So what we have developed through ALfA connects deeply with this truth: human beings everywhere have the same needs, and the same challenges. Better resources do not automatically mean better learning outcomes. What really matters is the child.
If we look at the PISA results, there’s huge variability and it’s not always linked to economics. Better financial resources don’t automatically mean better learning outcomes. There’s something else at the heart of education and that is the child.
That is why ALfA has worked across such diverse contexts. It is based on research and evidence, not opinion. Its principles, collaboration, inclusion, and equity are universal, almost like natural laws. Children learn in pairs, across gender, religion, and ability, without hierarchy or distinction. Everyone learns together, and that makes it deeply democratic and human.
I truly believe India can and must lead a Global South movement for learning equity, where education becomes as urgent and measurable a goal as health or climate. ALfA was created in India’s government schools and slums. Now around 12 countries are implementing this model. In Ghana, in the Ayensuano district, we have pilots running successfully, and in Peru, we are working in Spanish. ALfA is now available in 33 languages of the world.
ALFA pedagogy is what all human beings can relate to because its principles are universal, much like the laws of physics: eternal and unchangeable. The core values of inclusion, collaboration, and equity are spiritual principles that hold true everywhere.
As we move into an age shaped by AI, we must act quickly to bridge learning gaps and ensure no child is left behind. This is where CSR has a powerful role to play. By supporting models that are proven, inclusive, and scalable, the CSR community can help take this movement forward—not just to bring change, but to bring transformation in how the world learns
Q. What message would you like to leave for CSR and philanthropic leaders about the moral urgency of foundational literacy—and why do you believe it deserves the same long-term commitment and investment as global priorities like climate action or healthcare?
A. I would say that foundational literacy and numeracy is not just another development goal—it is the most urgent human priority. It is what allows people to take charge of their lives, make informed decisions, access opportunities, and protect themselves during crises like pandemics or climate shocks. Health, income, and climate action are all essential, but literacy is what makes them possible. It is the foundation on which every other intervention stands.
I would say this education is clearly the biggest emergency in the world. Because if you don’t know how to fish, then no amount of fish that anyone gives you will ever be enough.
What makes this even more powerful is that it doesn’t take years or huge investments. With today’s pedagogical innovations, a 45-day program can ignite lifelong learning. Once a person learns to read, they can continue to grow independently. Literacy delivers lifelong returns—it is low-cost, high-impact, and transformative.
For decades, we have treated education as a long, slow process. But with simple, research-based methods like picture-sound combinations and moving from known to unknown, anyone, child or adult, can quickly learn to read. The data is clear, the results are proven, and the global momentum is building.
So my message to CSR and philanthropic leaders is this, if you have to choose one investment with the greatest moral and social return, let it be literacy. Because without it, no amount of help is enough.
Literacy is prevention, not crisis management. It gives people the power to uplift themselves. So yes, everything needs funding, but if you have to choose one thing, let it be literacy. The only thing I’d put before it is nutrition for early childhood food on the table, the basics. But after that, nothing is more urgent, more transformative, or more morally essential than literacy.
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