- Azim Premji Foundation is working to strengthen the government school system through 270 Teacher Learning Centres across 10 states, reaching over 350,000 schools.
- Its initiatives include scholarships for 1.95 lakh girls, daily nutrition support for 55 lakh children, and social-sector education through Azim Premji University.
Rs. 2.3 lakh crore. The number is so large it loses meaning. Azim Premji has committed to philanthropy throughout his giving career. He transferred Wipro shares and publicly declared a pledge to give away most of his wealth. To put it in perspective, it is more than India’s total annual expenditure on education for several recent years. And yet the Azim Premji Foundation has made a deliberate choice not to build its own school system or fund visible, award-winning showpieces. Instead, since 2000, it has been quietly trying to fix the existing government school system.
350,000 schools, 270 teacher centres
The Foundation’s Education Transformation work is based on one gritty truth. Teacher quality is the biggest driver of learning. It can be improved only by long-term, sustained and respectful engagement at the local level. It has set up 270 Teacher Learning Centres in 10 states, rooted in districts where its field teams are situated and work on the ground.
It has touched the lives of over 350,000 government schools and hundreds of thousands of teachers through these centres. It has worked with state governments, including Karnataka, on the foundations of long-term trust rather than a project lifecycle.
1.95 lakh girls and a ₹30,000 scholarship
In 2024-25, the Foundation launched the Azim Premji Scholarship for girls from government schools pursuing UG or diploma degrees. In just its 2nd year, it has expanded to 18 states and one UT, covering Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Each girl receives ₹30,000/yr. for the full duration of her degree. So far, 1.95 lakh girls have been supported, a number growing significantly with each new cohort.
An egg a day for 55 Lakh children
The Foundation’s promise to the newer education was supported by Azim Premji’s promise of about 1,500 crores, spread over 3 years, to enhance the nutritional value of mid-day meals for government school and Anganwadi children. They began providing an egg or a vegetarian alternative daily in all schools; it is currently operational in the state of Karnataka, where it already reaches 55 lakh children, and is being launched across several other states. It is one of the most tangible ways we have seen philanthropy put its money, not into a building with a name on it or a branded programme, but into a child’s body and mind every single day.
A university that sends 90% of graduates back to villages
Azim Premji University runs degree programmes and research explicitly oriented toward the social sector. 13 cohorts, totalling over 5,300 graduates, have passed through its programmes. Remarkably, nearly 90% of master’s programme graduates who received job offers chose to work in the social sector. A 3rd campus is under construction in Ranchi on a 150-acre site and is expected to open soon. A 4th campus in northeast India is planned thereafter. A first major hospital is being commissioned in 2027, with a medical college, school of health sciences and a 1,300-bed facility. This will bring the Foundation’s healthcare commitment into brick-and-mortar form for the 1st time.
The way forward
Azim Premji’s philanthropy is nowhere near the loudest in India. He isn’t the one to carve his name on buildings. The Foundation does not issue a press release when it spends a crore.
What it does instead is rarer: it takes the difficult, time-consuming route of improving an inherently dysfunctional system, rather than the quick, straightforward one of creating a perfectly functioning parallel system. That choice should be viewed as the essence of a policy model, not just an abstract principle of single-individual virtue. Every state in India should ask itself what it would take to establish a Foundation-style Teacher Learning Centre in every district where government school learning levels are below the national median. It would be cheaper than one might imagine, given the scale of the challenge.
Clear Cut Education Desk
New Delhi, UPDATED: September 14, 2026 15:00 IST
Written By: Tanmay J. Urs
