Madhav Chavan Won Education 'Nobel prize'

Dr Madhav Chavan was awarded the WISE prize, which is known as the ‘Nobel prize for Education’. He was felicitated on 13 November 2012 at the WISE summit in Doha, the capital of Qatar.

The international award not only felicitated the person himself, but also recognized his efforts to provide lessons in literacy and numeracy for less fortunate and disadvantaged children and adults in India.

The award is decided upon by an international jury, which includes the the US Librarian of Congress, Dr James Billington; the president of Peking University, Prof Zhou Qifeng; former UN high commissioner, Mary Robinson and the chairman of WISE, Dr Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani.

Dr Madhav gave himself up for the cause of social activism and starting helping un educated slum dwellers in Mumbai in the late 80’s once he returned to India after studying in the United States .

After having worked with Unicef and the city authorities, he devised a method for providing lessons for huge number of people at low cost.

Dr Madhav’s charity, Pratham, also carried out lessons in temples and offices and recruited volunteers from the local community. His work expanded and went forth to other cities and states to become the largest non-governmental education provider for deprived children in India.