Our school access programme (ENABLE)

Our ENABLE (Ensure Access to Better Learning Experiences) pilot programme is designed to support the Indian government's policy of all children having the right to affordable, quality primary education.

We believe diversity of delivery, including through private sector providers, is central to the realisation of this policy. The voucher system we are piloting enables poor Indian children to exercise their legal right to free education in low cost private schools and helps low income families find the most appropriate school.

We started our pilot in 2010 in a deprived part of Delhi with community activities to publicise the scheme. This resulted in almost 1,800 eligible children applying for private education vouchers, more than half of whom had never attended school. The vouchers also cover additional schooling expenses such as uniforms and text books.

We also assessed more than 300 local private schools against a range of criteria, and selected just over 100 to take part in the scheme. We believe the new education law will have a bigger impact if the schools are part of a system that encourages competition for state-supported pupils.

Vouchers were distributed randomly through a lottery to around half the applicants (although siblings were kept together). Successful families with vouchers were given a choice of the 100 selected schools. In order to measure the impact of this model, we tested all enrolled children in English, maths and Hindi, and will monitor their progress.