Gyan Shala’s mission is to provide high quality, scalable and low-cost education to poor rural and urban children, so that children can continue their education through India’s mainstream municipal and private schools and universities. It was founded by CEO Pankaj Jain in Ahmedabad in 2000, when the team operated first grade classes in ten slums around the city. By the 2006-7 school year, Gyan Shala was operating 300 primary school classes in Gujarat. In the present 2015-16 school year, Gyan Shala is operating 1,665 primary school classes across Gujarat, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, serving 43,279 children, 53% of whom are girls.
