Rukmini Banerji

Rukmini Banerji is the chief executive officer of Pratham Education Foundation. Having joined the organisation in 1996, over the years Rukmini has worked extensively on Pratham’s education programmes in rural and urban areas. She played a key role in designing and supporting large-scale partnerships with state governments in India for improving children’s learning outcomes. Rukmini led Pratham’s research and assessment efforts including the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) exercise from 2005 to 2014.

In 2008, Rukmini received the Maulana Abul Kalam Shiksha Puraskar trophy by the Government of Bihar, India, as the first recipient of the award. In 2021, Rukmini was awarded the Yidan Prize for Education Development.

Rukmini Banerji studied economics at St Stephen’s College, Delhi and the Delhi School of Economics. She was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University (1981-83) and completed her PhD at the University of Chicago in 1991.