Climate change, often described as a universal crisis, is neither neutral nor evenly distributed in its impacts. It moves through societies along existing fault lines of inequality, deepening them as it goes. Gender is one of the most consequential of these fault lines.
A report launched at COP28 by UN Women projects that by 2050, climate change could push an additional 158 million women and girls into poverty and expose 232 million more to food insecurity. These figures are not anomalies. They reflect a pattern that has become increasingly visible in climate-vulnerable regions across the world, including India. Climate change does not simply affect women more; it affects them differently, in ways that are often invisible to policy and poorly captured by data.
As Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, once put it, “Climate change is a man-made problem that requires a feminist solution.” The statement is not rhetorical but diagnostic.
Climate change as a stress test for inequality
Climate change acts less like a sudden catastrophe and more like a stress test. It reveals the weaknesses already embedded in social, economic and political systems. Wherever inequality is deep, climate impacts are magnified. Gender inequality, in particular, shapes who is exposed, who bears the burden of adaptation and who is able to recover.
Across the Global South, women are disproportionately concentrated in informal and climate-sensitive livelihoods: smallholder agriculture, waste picking, street vending, domestic work and home-based production. These sectors offer little job security, no insurance and minimal state protection. When heatwaves intensify, rainfall patterns shift or floods destroy local markets, women’s incomes are often the first to collapse and the slowest to rebound.
In India, where nearly 90 per cent of women workers are employed in the informal sector, climate shocks translate directly into economic precarity. Crop failure, water scarcity or extreme heat does not merely disrupt production; it destabilises household survival strategies, pushing women further into unpaid or underpaid labour.
The unpaid work that climate policy ignores
Perhaps the most under-recognised dimension of climate change is its impact on unpaid care work. Women continue to shoulder the bulk of domestic responsibilities—collecting water and fuel, cooking, cleaning and caring for children, the elderly and the sick. As climate stress intensifies, these responsibilities expand.
Water scarcity means longer walks and more time spent fetching water. Rising food prices increase the labour involved in securing and preparing meals. Climate-induced illness, whether from heat stress or waterborne disease, adds to caregiving demands. Each additional hour spent on unpaid work narrows women’s access to education, paid employment and political participation.
This erosion is gradual, cumulative and largely invisible. Climate policy, focused on emissions targets and infrastructure, rarely accounts for the time poverty that women experience as ecosystems degrade.
Extreme heat and invisible suffering
Heat is one of the clearest examples of climate change’s gendered impacts. In India, record-breaking heatwaves are becoming more frequent and prolonged. Women working outdoors—in agriculture, construction or waste collection—or in poorly ventilated factories and homes bear a disproportionate burden.
But women’s heat exposure is underreported. Many cope by limiting water intake to avoid unsafe or inaccessible sanitation facilities, increasing the risk of dehydration, urinary tract infections and kidney disease. Others continue working through exhaustion because informal employment offers no sick leave.
These coping strategies rarely appear in climate impact assessments. The health consequences—chronic fatigue, reproductive health complications, long-term organ damage—remain largely absent from official data, rendering women’s suffering statistically invisible.
A public health crisis with blind spots
Climate change has increasingly been recognised as a public health emergency. However, women’s health remains peripheral in climate adaptation planning. Heat stress, air pollution and water contamination have well-documented effects on pregnancy outcomes, maternal mortality and newborn health. Yet reproductive and maternal health services are seldom integrated into climate response strategies.
During climate-related disasters, access to contraception, antenatal care and safe childbirth services is often disrupted. Emergency shelters frequently lack privacy, sanitation and menstrual hygiene facilities. These gaps are not incidental; they reflect the persistent failure to view women’s health as central to climate resilience.
Displacement, insecurity and gendered violence
Climate-induced displacement introduces another layer of gender-specific risk. Floods, droughts and food shortages force families to migrate, often into precarious urban settlements or temporary camps. For women and girls, displacement increases exposure to sexual violence, trafficking and early marriage.
Evidence from humanitarian crises shows that domestic violence often rises during periods of climate stress, driven by economic insecurity, overcrowding and social breakdown. Yet climate policy continues to treat violence as a secondary issue, rather than a predictable outcome of environmental and economic disruption.
Why intersectionality matters
Gender does not operate in isolation. Indigenous women, migrant women, older women, women with disabilities and LGBTQIA+ individuals face layered vulnerabilities shaped by caste, class, ethnicity and geography. In India, tribal women dependent on forest resources are uniquely exposed to climate change, yet rarely consulted in conservation or adaptation planning.
When policies are designed around a narrow understanding of “women’s vulnerability,” they tend to protect those who are already relatively privileged. Intersectional realities remain unaddressed, leaving the most marginalised women further behind.
Women as agents, not victims
Despite these challenges, women are not passive victims of climate change. Across India and the Global South, women are leading adaptation efforts—through seed conservation, water management, community farming cooperatives and resistance to environmentally destructive projects.
Indigenous and rural women possess deep ecological knowledge shaped by daily interaction with land and resources. Yet this knowledge is frequently excluded from formal decision-making. Barriers such as unpaid care work, lack of access to finance, digital exclusion and limited political representation constrain women’s ability to influence climate policy.
Recognising women as climate actors requires more than representation. It demands policies that reduce structural burdens and redistribute resources.
What gender-responsive climate action requires
A gender-responsive approach to climate action must move beyond rhetoric. It requires tangible shifts in how adaptation and mitigation are financed and implemented.
This includes investing in inclusive social protection systems that account for climate risk, ensuring women’s access to land, credit and insurance, and supporting agrifood systems that are resilient and equitable. Data must be disaggregated by gender, age and social identity to inform policy. Climate finance should prioritise grassroots women’s organisations, which are often best positioned to deliver context-specific solutions.
Crucially, women must be involved in decision-making at every level—from local governance to national planning and global negotiations.
Civil society and community-led resilience
In India, civil society organisations play a critical role in translating these principles into practice. Smile Foundation’s Swabhiman programme offers an example of how gender-responsive approaches can be embedded at the community level.
Launched in 2005, Swabhiman works with marginalised women to improve nutrition, healthcare access and livelihood security—key pillars of climate resilience. By strengthening women’s economic independence and health awareness, the programme addresses vulnerabilities that climate change exacerbates.
Swabhiman’s community-based model recognises that resilience is not built through infrastructure alone, but through agency. By engaging men and boys alongside women, it also tackles the social norms that constrain women’s choices, making adaptation more sustainable.
Towards a just climate response
Climate change does not create gender inequality, but it relentlessly exploits it. The result is a slow, steady erosion of women’s health, livelihoods and dignity without immediate visibility.
If climate action continues to ignore gendered realities, it risks entrenching injustice under the guise of neutrality. A truly effective response must recognise that protecting the planet and advancing gender equality are not separate goals, but interdependent ones.
The evidence is clear that climate change is gender-biased. The real question is whether climate policy will continue to mirror existing inequalities, or whether it will confront them directly.
The answer will determine not only who survives climate change, but who shapes the future that follows.
In the summer of 2024, as record-breaking heatwaves swept across northern India, schools in several States shut down for weeks at a time. For policymakers, these closures were framed as temporary disruptions. For children, they were something else entirely: lessons learned not from textbooks, but from lived experience. Heat, water scarcity and air pollution were no longer abstract environmental concepts; they were the conditions shaping daily life.
This gap between lived experience and formal education lies at the heart of India’s climate challenge. While children are increasingly exposed to the effects of climate change, the education system has struggled to equip them with the tools to understand, articulate and respond to these realities. Environmental education remains largely instructional, focused on definitions and diagrams, even as climate change unfolds outside classroom windows.
Treating children merely as recipients of climate knowledge misses a critical opportunity. Children are not passive witnesses to environmental change. They observe it closely, interpret it intuitively and communicate it vividly. When education enables them to articulate these observations, children become climate storytellers, translating environmental change into narratives that resonate within families, schools and communities. At a moment when climate discourse is dominated by targets, projections and global negotiations, these local narratives are not incidental. They are essential.
Climate change as a childhood condition
India ranks among the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world. According to UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index, India stands 26th out of 163 countries, with over a billion children exposed to at least one major climate hazard — heatwaves, floods, cyclones or air pollution. These risks are not evenly distributed. Children from low-income households, informal settlements and climate-sensitive regions experience the most frequent and severe disruptions.
Yet climate education in India has not kept pace with this reality. For many students, climate change remains a chapter at the back of a science textbook — something to be memorised for examinations rather than understood as a shaping force in their lives. This disconnect has consequences. When children experience climate change as disruption but learn it as theory, education loses relevance and credibility.
Environmental education, to be meaningful, must begin from where children are — not from where syllabi assume them to be.
Why storytelling matters in environmental education
Storytelling is often dismissed as a soft skill, secondary to scientific rigour. In climate education, the opposite is true. Storytelling is how children connect data to experience, cause to consequence, and local observation to global phenomenon.
Educational research consistently shows that narrative-based learning strengthens comprehension and retention, particularly for complex systems such as climate science. More importantly, it allows children to situate themselves within the problem without being overwhelmed by it. A child who documents a drying water source or changing monsoon patterns is not merely learning about climate change; they are learning how to observe, analyse and communicate evidence.
This is not anecdotal pedagogy. UNESCO’s 2023 review on climate change education highlights that participatory, student-led approaches — including storytelling — lead to stronger environmental literacy and greater civic engagement. When children narrate environmental change, they also begin to imagine response.
Policy intent, pedagogical hesitation
India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recognises the need for environmental awareness, scientific temper and experiential learning across stages of schooling. It encourages interdisciplinary approaches and contextual learning. On paper, the intent is sound.
In practice, implementation remains hesitant. Environmental education is still treated as an adjunct, rather than a core civic competency. Teachers often lack training or curricular flexibility to engage with climate issues beyond prescribed content. In under-resourced schools, experiential learning is constrained by infrastructure and time pressures.
There is also a deeper discomfort at play. Climate change, when taught seriously, raises questions about development choices, governance failures and inequality. Allowing children to articulate climate experiences risks unsettling comfortable narratives. As a result, education systems default to safer ground: facts without context, science without story.
Whose stories are heard
The inequities in climate education mirror broader educational divides. Children in private, urban schools are more likely to encounter project-based learning, digital tools and environmental clubs. Students in government schools, particularly in rural, tribal and peri-urban areas, often experience climate impacts more directly but have fewer opportunities to articulate them.
This imbalance risks producing a narrow class of climate-aware citizens — fluent in global discourse but disconnected from local realities — while marginalised children remain invisible in climate conversations despite bearing the brunt of environmental change.
If environmental education is to serve democratic ends, it must prioritise voice as much as knowledge. Storytelling offers one of the few pedagogical tools capable of bridging this divide, because it does not depend on expensive infrastructure. It depends on attention.
Children as communicators, not symbols
Children’s voices are often invoked symbolically in climate discourse — as victims to be protected or as moral reminders of future generations. Far less attention is paid to their role as communicators in the present.
When children describe climate change in their own words — through essays, drawings, plays or digital media — they often communicate urgency with a clarity that expert reports struggle to achieve. Their narratives are specific, grounded and relational. They speak of schoolyards without shade, water taps that run dry, homes flooded during monsoons.
These stories travel. Research shows that children’s environmental learning frequently influences household behaviour, shaping decisions around water use, waste management and energy consumption. In this sense, children function not just as learners but as conduits of social change.
The role of civil society in environmental education
Where formal systems move slowly, civil society organisations often experiment with pedagogical innovation. Their role is not to replace state responsibility, but to demonstrate what is possible.
Smile Foundation’s education programmes offer one such example. Through its flagship Mission Education initiative, environmental awareness is embedded within broader learning for children from underserved communities. Climate concepts are introduced through observation-based activities — tracking water use, understanding waste flows, exploring local biodiversity — rather than abstract instruction.
Storytelling is central to this approach. Children are encouraged to document environmental challenges in their neighbourhoods through writing, art and group discussion. These narratives are then shared within classrooms and communities, reinforcing the idea that children’s experiences are valid sources of knowledge.
Importantly, these initiatives do not position children as climate activists burdened with responsibility. They position them as observers and communicators, capable of describing their environment with accuracy and empathy. In communities where climate change is often discussed only after disasters, this shift matters.
From climate anxiety to climate literacy
One of the unspoken challenges of climate education is anxiety. Children exposed to climate change narratives framed solely around catastrophe may feel helpless. Storytelling, when grounded in local experience, can counter this by restoring a sense of agency.
Climate literacy is not about producing solutions; it is about understanding systems, recognising interdependence and articulating concern. Children who can narrate environmental change are better equipped to engage with it emotionally and intellectually.
This distinction matters in India, where climate change is often experienced as instability rather than spectacle. Education that helps children name what they are experiencing is a form of resilience.
Why this matters now
As climate disruptions intensify, schooling itself is becoming more precarious. Heatwaves, floods and pollution-related closures are likely to increase. Education systems that fail to address climate realities risk becoming increasingly disconnected from students’ lives.
Environmental education that foregrounds storytelling offers a way forward. It does not require rewriting curricula overnight. It requires recognising that children’s observations are not distractions from learning, but its starting point.
If India is serious about preparing future generations for a climate-altered world, it must move beyond treating environmental education as enrichment. It must recognise it as a civic necessity.
Children are already living with climate change. The question is whether education systems will allow them to understand and articulate that experience meaningfully. Environmental education that treats children as storytellers — not just students — does more than impart knowledge. It cultivates attention, responsibility and voice.
In a climate-vulnerable country, these are not soft skills. They are democratic ones. By listening to children’s stories of environmental change, India may find not only better climate education, but a clearer understanding of what is at stake.
Rupa is a student of Class 6 at Smile Foundation Mission Education Centre at Karnala, Kalahandi, Odisha
Adolescence is a critical window. For girls, especially, it is a period of rapid growth, hormonal changes and the beginning of reproductive maturity. Adequate nutrition during this time does more supports growth and helps shape lifelong health, cognitive development, school attendance and future economic potential.
In India, where a large portion of the population is under 20, investing in adolescent nutrition is not just a matter of social welfare but also a national development priority.
However, for many adolescent girls in rural, tribal or marginalised communities, the reality is grim: iron deficiency, anaemia, lack of dietary variety and low awareness of nutritional health. This makes adolescent nutrition a pressing public health and social equity challenge.
National-level schemes (like iron–folic acid distribution, mid-day meals) play an essential role, but they are often inadequate when applied with a generic, “one-size-fits-all” lens. What’s needed is a region-specific “playbook” — one that adapts to local food cultures, resource constraints, gender norms and health system strengths.
Why Adolescent Girl Nutrition Matters for India’s Development
According to NFHS-5, adolescent girls aged 15-19 are critical to breaking the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition. Yet, nearly a quarter of them remain underweight, reflecting far-reaching consequences for the country’s economic and development trajectory.
Malnourished adolescent girls often grow into adults with lower productivity, weaker immune systems and reduced learning capacity, which can impact India’s human capital growth and its ability to harness the demographic dividend. The implications are even more severe when adolescent girls become young mothers. Malnutrition during adolescence increases the risk of maternal mortality, leads to low-birthweight infants and perpetuates chronic undernutrition in the next generation, particularly in states with high teenage pregnancy rates. Nutrition for adolescent girls is also closely linked to gender equality. Improved nourishment results in better school attendance, delays early marriage and enhances future economic participation. Ultimately, investing in the nutrition of adolescent girls pays developmental dividends at every stage of their lives.
However, given India’s population diversity, the challenges and solutions related to adolescent girl nutrition cannot be uniform across states. Socio-cultural norms, geography, tribal status, climate, food availability and levels of urbanisation differ dramatically across regions. Hence, it is essential to have a region-specific approach towards nutrition.
Region-specific approach to nutrition
In northern states such as Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, gender norms, harsh winters and high anaemia prevalence combine to create specific vulnerabilities for adolescent girls. In Uttar Pradesh, nearly 66 per cent of its teenage girls report anaemia, and adding to that is the social issue of early marriage, resulting in a widening nutritional gap during adolescence. Furthermore, Himalayan states face challenges due to their cold climates, which limit access to fresh produce, making it difficult to achieve micronutrient-rich diets. Addressing these issues requires locally relevant solutions such as winter-resilient community nutrition initiatives, the cultivation of iron-rich crops in kitchen gardens, stronger school-based supplementation programmes and mobile health services for remote mountain communities.
In contrast, eastern and northeastern states such as Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland fight a different set of challenges. High tribal populations often live in geographically isolated areas where access to healthcare and nutrition services is limited. Jharkhand and Bengal have seasonal migration of labourers, disrupting schooling of young girls and interrupting access to government schemes. Extreme weather events such as floods in Assam routinely affect food supply systems. States like Odisha and Jharkhand report high levels of stunting and severe anaemia, reflecting deep-rooted food insecurity.
Solutions that work in these regions must be grounded in local food cultures, such as millet-based and forest-based diets traditionally consumed by tribal communities. Strengthening hostel-based nutrition for adolescent migrant girls, developing flood-resilient health services and supporting women-led self-help groups to produce take-home rations can significantly improve nutrition outcomes in these areas.
The western region, comprising Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa and western Rajasthan, faces the dual burden of malnutrition. Urban areas in Maharashtra and Gujarat have been reporting rising obesity levels among adolescent girls, driven by processed food consumption and sedentary lifestyles. At the same time, rural pockets continue to struggle with undernutrition and anaemia. This urban-rural divide necessitates a dual approach that simultaneously addresses micronutrient deficiencies and obesity through school-based nutrition education, regular screenings and dietary counselling.
In industrial belts of Maharashtra, where school dropout rates among adolescent girls remain high, particularly due to household labour demands, nutrition programmes must be tightly woven into school retention efforts. Locally grown crops, nutri-gardens in drought-prone villages and partnerships with municipal authorities to regulate school canteen nutrition are regionally relevant strategies for this zone.
Southern states, such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, present a comparatively better institutional framework, with stronger public health infrastructure and a broader reach of schemes like ICDS and Midday Meals. However, pockets of micronutrient deficiency persist, especially in disadvantaged districts within Tamil Nadu, Telangana and North Karnataka. The region is also witnessing a steady rise in adolescent obesity, especially among girls from middle-income families who face academic pressure, irregular eating habits and reduced physical activity. Southern states thus require interventions focused on food fortification, strengthening school meals, awareness campaigns to reduce ultra-processed foods and integrating mental health with nutrition counselling in schools. These areas also stand to benefit from precise micro-nutrition mapping to identify underserved communities within otherwise high-performing states.
A region-specific national playbook for India must stand on five strong pillars.
1. The first is strengthening institutional delivery systems such as ICDS, Midday Meals and school health programmes. These platforms cover millions of adolescent girls, but their quality varies significantly across regions. Standardising monitoring systems, improving supply chains, diversifying food procurement to include local produce and ensuring mandatory micronutrient supplementation can provide an equitable foundation.
2. The second pillar is recognising India’s cultural and dietary diversity as a strength rather than a barrier. Each region has locally available, nutrient-rich foods—ranging from coastal fish-based diets to tribal millet-based meals—that must be integrated into nutrition plans. Standardised diets are neither cost-effective nor culturally acceptable across India’s diverse landscape.
3. The third pillar involves transforming community behaviour through social change, particularly among mothers, teachers and peer groups. Nutrition in India is highly gendered, with girls often eating last and least within households. Changing this requires sustained community engagement, mother–daughter sessions, father-inclusive dialogues and peer support groups in schools.
4. The fourth pillar focuses on strengthening the health system so that frameworks and policies reach adolescents. Regular anaemia screening, functional menstrual hygiene rooms in schools, affordable sanitary products produced by women-led groups and specialised training for frontline workers on adolescent nutrition are essential for impactful interventions.
5. The fifth and final pillar emphasises the integration of nutrition with education and social protection systems. Malnutrition cannot be addressed in isolation; it is intertwined with school dropout, early marriage, mobility constraints and household poverty. Convergence between departments can enable innovations such as conditional cash transfers to delay early marriage, scholarships tied to school attendance and free transportation for girls in remote regions.
Nutrition for AdolescentGirls
Applying these pillars in practical state-level strategies could fundamentally shift outcomes. For instance, Uttar Pradesh can prioritise tackling anaemia through community and school-based campaigns, while Odisha may focus on integrating tribal diets and migration-sensitive services. Maharashtra could address both obesity and undernutrition through a combined urban-rural strategy and Tamil Nadu may emphasise micronutrient fortification alongside mental health–nutrition integration. Each state requires a customised plan based on geography, culture, food availability, social norms and infrastructure.
The economic rationale for adolescent nutrition is equally compelling. Evidence from the World Bank suggests that every dollar invested in nutrition yields sixteen dollars in financial returns. Because teenage girls sit at a transformative stage of life, the multiplier effect of improved nutrition is reflected in higher educational attainment, delayed marriage, improved maternal health, increased lifetime earnings and healthier future generations. A region-specific adolescent nutrition playbook is not a cost but an economic and developmental investment that India cannot afford to postpone.
Role of civil society and Smile Foundation
In this regard, civil society organisations play a critical role in operationalising these ideas at the grassroots level. While the government remains focused on creating large-scale frameworks, it is the duty of community organisations to translate them into local solutions tailored for local needs. Smile Foundation’s work offers powerful insights into how this can be done.
Through initiatives such as Project Poshan, nutrition counselling for adolescent girls, and community mobilisation efforts, the Foundation demonstrates how locally available foods and culturally relevant practices can be integrated into daily diets. Its mobile health units under the Smile-on-Wheels programme take nutrition awareness and health services to remote regions that public systems struggle to reach. School health programmes, under initiatives like Swabhiman, link anaemia screening, menstrual hygiene awareness, and adolescent counselling, showing the value of integrating social norms, health services, and food practices. These models embody precisely the regional, community-led approach India needs to adopt at scale.
Most of us can recall the moment we first felt overwhelmed by money. It might have been the first time we filed taxes, applied for a loan or tried to understand why our savings never seemed to grow as expected. For many adults, financial decisions remain a source of anxiety, not because money itself is complicated, but because we were never taught how it fits into daily life.
In school, mathematics was often presented as a series of formulas to be memorised and problems to be solved on paper. Rarely was it linked to practical skills like budgeting, saving, planning for emergencies or understanding interest. As a result, many people enter adulthood fluent in equations but unfamiliar with managing real-world finances.
What we often overlook is that financial habits do not begin when a person turns eighteen. They start much earlier. By adolescence, children are already observing how money moves within their households. They notice how decisions are made, which expenses are prioritised and how financial stress is handled. Increasingly, they are also managing money digitally, through mobile wallets, online payments and apps. By the time formal financial education arrives, if it arrives at all, many habits are already ingrained.
This is why early financial literacy matters. It is not about turning children into investors or accountants. It is about equipping them with the understanding, confidence and decision-making skills they need to navigate a world where money plays a central role in daily life.
The Cost of Delaying Financial Education
In India, financial education has long been treated as an optional add-on rather than a core life skill. School curricula have evolved in many ways, introducing vocational subjects, digital learning and employability-focused courses. But the basics of managing money are often missing.
Many parents, especially those from low- and middle-income households, do not feel confident discussing finances with their children. This is not due to lack of concern, but because they themselves were never taught these skills. As a result, children are left to learn about money through observation, experimentation and sometimes costly mistakes.
At the same time, the financial landscape has changed rapidly. Digital payment platforms, instant credit, buy-now-pay-later schemes and online investment products are more accessible than ever. While these tools offer convenience, they also carry risks for those who lack foundational knowledge. Without an understanding of interest, repayment cycles or financial planning, a small misstep can quickly escalate into long-term debt or financial instability.
Delaying financial education means children enter adulthood unprepared for these realities. It places the burden of learning entirely on individuals, often when the consequences of mistakes are far more serious. Early financial education offers a preventive approach, helping young people develop healthy habits before challenges arise.
Why Financial Literacy Is Especially Critical for Girls
While financial literacy is essential for all children, it holds particular importance for girls and young women. In many households, girls are taught the value of saving and thrift from an early age. However, they often have limited exposure to earning, investing, negotiating or managing credit.
This imbalance has long-term consequences. Women who lack financial knowledge may feel hesitant to ask questions, challenge decisions or plan independently. Financial literacy changes this dynamic. It fosters confidence, enabling women to compare options, assess risks and make informed choices.
When girls receive financial education early, the benefits extend beyond the individual. Financially informed women play a stronger role in household budgeting and long-term planning. They influence how families save, spend and prepare for emergencies. Over time, these shifts reshape intergenerational attitudes toward money, creating more resilient households.
Early financial education is therefore not just about numbers. It is about agency, independence and the ability to participate fully in economic life.
Compounding: The Power of Starting Early
One of the most powerful financial concepts is also one of the simplest: compounding. It illustrates how small, consistent efforts grow over time.
Consider two people. One begins saving a modest amount in their early twenties and continues steadily. The other waits until their thirties and tries to compensate by saving more aggressively. Despite contributing a similar total amount, the early saver often ends up with significantly more. Time, not just money, does the heavy lifting.
For young learners, compounding offers an important lesson in patience and persistence. It shows that progress does not always need to be immediate to be meaningful. By understanding this early, children learn the value of consistency over quick gains. They begin to see saving not as a sacrifice, but as an investment in future stability.
Saving: Building Security and Confidence
Saving is often described as a grown-up responsibility, but it is also a powerful tool for building confidence. A child who learns to save understands that they can plan ahead, manage uncertainty and work toward goals without relying entirely on others.
Simple practices make a difference. Dividing an allowance into different categories, tracking spending through a basic app or saving toward a specific goal helps children see how money flows. They learn how quickly small expenses add up and how waiting can lead to more meaningful rewards.
Saving also builds emotional resilience. Knowing there is a safety net, however small, reduces anxiety and encourages thoughtful decision-making. Over time, this sense of control becomes a foundation for financial independence.
Budgeting: Learning to Make Choices
At its core, budgeting is about understanding choices. It teaches children to distinguish between needs and wants, to prioritise and to plan within limits.
When budgeting becomes a shared family activity, it offers valuable insights. Children see how decisions are made, how trade-offs are negotiated and how responsibilities are balanced. They move from being passive observers to active participants in household planning.
These lessons extend beyond money. Budgeting fosters accountability, critical thinking, and an appreciation for long-term goals. It helps young people understand that every choice carries an opportunity cost, a concept that applies to many areas of life.
Making Mathematics Meaningful
For many students, mathematics feels abstract and intimidating. Yet, it is deeply embedded in everyday life. Percentages, ratios and basic arithmetic shape how we save, borrow and spend.
When students learn about interest through real examples, they begin to see why starting early matters. Budgeting relies on addition and subtraction to ensure expenses do not exceed income. Understanding loans involves grasping repayment schedules and interest rates.
By connecting mathematics to real-life financial decisions, learning becomes relevant and empowering. Maths shifts from being a subject to be feared to a tool that supports personal goals and financial well-being.
Building Financial Literacy Through Community Programmes
Recognising the importance of early financial education, Smile Foundation has integrated financial literacy into its broader education and empowerment initiatives. One such effort was implemented in Telangana, where rural students often face limited exposure to financial concepts despite growing digital access.
Supported by the Flipkart Foundation, the programme was designed to address real-life challenges faced by students and their families. Sessions focused on practical skills such as saving, budgeting, understanding digital payments and recognising financial risks. Rather than abstract lessons, the programme used familiar scenarios to make learning accessible and relevant.
Smile Foundation’s Swabhiman project further extends this work by focusing on women’s empowerment. Through structured sessions on financial literacy, women gain the tools to manage household finances, plan for the future and participate more confidently in economic decisions. These interventions recognise that financial knowledge is a critical component of broader social and economic empowerment.
Building Economic Resilience
Teaching children and adolescents how money works prepares them for a world that increasingly demands informed financial decisions. Habits formed early in life tend to persist, shaping outcomes well into adulthood. When financial education begins early, it reduces long-term risks, strengthens families and builds economic resilience.
Financial literacy is not a luxury. It is a foundational life skill. By embedding it into education systems and community programmes, we create pathways for greater independence, particularly for girls and women. In doing so, we strengthen not just individual futures, but the social and economic fabric of the nation.
Smile Foundation’s work demonstrates that early, context-sensitive financial education is both possible and impactful. By focusing on behaviour, confidence and practical skills, such initiatives help young people navigate complexity with clarity and purpose.
Christmas is that time of the year when the air carries the gentle hum of carols, evenings are wrapped in the warmth of chocolate milk and plum cake while the steers glow with lights that symbolise hope and new beginnings. For children, Christmas brings the joy of waiting for Santa Claus, of believing that their goodness shall be rewarded.
Yet, for countless children across rural and underserved communities, especially girls, the season also mirrors a harsher reality. For them, Christmas often arrives with long and difficult journeys to schools through cold winter mornings– a struggle that can decide their fates of continuing the education or dropping out of the school.
Christmas Call to Strengthen Girl Child Education in India
Education is the cornerstone of empowerment, and every child deserves the gift of learning. However, girl child education in India continues to face systematic barriers rooted in gender inequality. As highlighted in UNESCO’s SDG 4 Scorecard 2025, while access and enrolment have improved- equitable education still remains uneven. India’s ranking in the Global Gender Gap Index further underscores the distance the country must travel to achieve true gender parity.
In this scenario, strengthening girl child education in India must go beyond enrolments. It demands sustained focus on retention, learning outcomes, trained teachers, safe infrastructure and dignity-driven school environments to ensure that their education is not just a seasonal hope, but a lasting promise which empowers every girl to learn, thrive and shape her own future.
Donate on Christmas, Make a difference
The festive season of Christmas begins with Thanksgiving around the world. It is an occasion where people express their gratitude for the blessings and sacrifices of the past year and celebrate by feasting with family and friends. Festivals often remind us to be grateful for the fortunes we are blessed with. Giving back to society and sharing our abundance with the ones deprived of it can be a great way to show our thankfulness to God.
Here’s a list of few Christmas Donation Ideas:
1.Donate for girl child education: When it comes to a poor family struggling for two square meals a day, education becomes their least concern. But education has the power to change lives, especially girl child education. You can give the precious gift of education to these under-privileged children and transform their lives.
Smile Foundation through its Shiksha Na Ruke initiative has been working relentlessly to make sure that poverty doesn’t deter education for a child. You can join hands with the Smile Foundation and donate online in a one-time or monthly payment mode to help educate a child and gift them a better future.
2.Donate educational gifts to poor kids: There are many poor and marginalized kids who are eager to read and write but cannot afford books or educational stationery. This Christmas, you can be their Santa Claus and buy them notebooks, pencils, erasers, crayons and other stationery which might not cost you much but would surely bring a big smile on these kids’ faces.
3. Share your Christmas Treat: Christmas is incomplete without a scrumptious and elaborate feast with friends and family. In case you are hosting one such Christmas feast and have cooked or arranged food that’s more than what you need, remember there are lots of hungry people you can feed. You can donate your extra food by finding the needy yourself or call the helpline numbers which provide assistance in this regard.
4.Donate winter clothes to the homeless: Christmas time is winter time when many parts of the country experience extreme cold. In such climatic conditions, the homeless people and footpath dwellers suffer the most. You can donate bed sheets, blankets, shawls or any winter clothing to keep them warm and survive the chilly weather.
5.Cook a special Christmas meal for poor kids: Christmas is about sharing food, fun and festivities. You can take like-minded friends or family members and spend your Christmas at any orphanage, children’s home or old age home and cook a special meal for them. Believe us, the twinkle in their eyes and glee on their face would make the most cherished Christmas memories.
6. Be the Secret Santa to a needy person: Playing secret Santa and giving surprise gifts to colleagues has become part of Christmas celebrations in corporate offices in recent times. How about being a secret Santa to a person or family that expects it the least but needs it the most. For example, the watchman of your apartment, or the lift attendant in your office, the maid who works in your house or the delivery boy of your neighbourhood grocery store. If you know any specific requirement of a needy person in your vicinity or a community helper, which you can afford to fulfill, then go ahead and grant their wish. You’ll not just pleasantly surprise them but earn loads of sincere blessings.
Final Takeaway
A small act of charity by you could mean a world of difference to someone. Never stop being kind because kindness keeps the world going and has a positive impact on the self and society. Not just Christmas or any festival, let’s make kindness and compassion a way of life because as the common saying goes, “Service to Mankind is service to God.”
So set out with all your heart to donate, volunteer and serve others at every opportunity you can. Learn about Smile Foundation’s flagship programme, Mission Education and know what it is doing with respect to girl child education. Donate for girl child education today. Wish you a Merry Christmas!
In modern business, where evolution is constant, the engagement of employees emerges as foundational for organisational success. Beyond mere productivity, engaged employees embody loyalty and innovation, shaping a path to enhanced business outcomes. Among the myriad factors influencing employee engagement, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in India emerges as a potent catalyst, weaving a narrative of purpose and commitment within the organisational fabric.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
CSR stands as a testament to the commitment of a company to ethical and responsible business practices, transcending profit motives. It encompasses a spectrum of activities, from philanthropy and sustainability efforts to ethical business conduct and community engagement. The thoughtful implementation of CSR not only shapes the reputation of an organisation but also influences its corporate culture and, significantly, the engagement levels of its employees.
The Intrinsic Link between CSR and Employee Engagement
Cultivation of a Sense of Purpose: CSR instills a profound sense of purpose among employees, fostering deep engagement and motivation by connecting their work to a broader societal good.
Augmented Job Satisfaction: CSR initiatives, such as volunteering opportunities and sustainability efforts, elevate job satisfaction levels by instilling pride in employees for the values and actions of their company.
Nurturing a Positive Organisational Culture: CSR plays a pivotal role in cultivating a positive and inclusive organisational culture, communicating a commitment to ethical values that fosters a cohesive and engaged workforce.
Talent Attraction and Retention: Actively engaging in CSR facilitates the attraction and retention of top talent, as professionals increasingly seek alignment between personal values and the commitment of their employees to societal contributions.
Employee Well-Being as a Component: CSR extends to employee well-being programmes, encompassing mental health support, wellness initiatives, and work-life balance policies, contributing to overall employee satisfaction and engagement.
What to Look for in CSR Initiatives?
Alignment with Company Values Effective CSR initiatives seamlessly align with the core values and business objectives of a company, ensuring a cohesive integration with the organisational mission and cultural ethos.
Measurable Impact Seek CSR initiatives with tangible and measurable impacts, supported by transparent reporting, accountability measures, and clear key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate success.
Employee Involvement and Empowerment Encourage active employee participation by selecting initiatives that provide opportunities for volunteering, idea contribution, and leadership roles, enhancing a sense of ownership and commitment.
Long-Term Commitment Sustainability should be at the heart of CSR strategy, with initiatives reflecting a long-term commitment to creating lasting and meaningful change rather than short-term endeavors.
Flexibility and Adaptability CSR initiatives should be adaptable to changing circumstances and responsive to evolving societal needs, allowing organisations to remain relevant and effective over time.
Engage Teams with Smile
Corporate Social Responsibility emerges as a versatile tool empowering organisations to enhance employee engagement in India and foster positive workplace cultures. The benefits extend beyond the workplace, creating a better world for all.
As organisations look to close the year with purpose, employee engagement is increasingly being viewed not just as an internal HR initiative, but as an opportunity to create shared value for communities. Smile Foundation offers a thoughtfully curated range of employee engagement activities that allow organisations to celebrate Christmas and the New Year meaningfully by combining team bonding, creativity, sustainability, and social impact.
Smile Foundation’s employee engagement programmes are designed to bring teams together through hands-on experiences that directly benefit underserved children and communities. Each activity is structured to encourage collaboration, empathy, and a sense of collective achievement, making them ideal for year-end engagement calendars, festive volunteering days, or New Year kick-off events.
One of the most impactful offerings is the Build-a-Bike activity—a dynamic team-building experience where employees assemble bicycles that are later donated to children in need. Beyond the mechanics, the activity reinforces teamwork, problem-solving, and the joy of giving, while addressing mobility challenges that often hinder access to education.
For organisations seeking to support education creatively, BaLA (Building as Learning Aid) Art initiatives enable employees to transform school spaces through educational wall art, classroom painting, and interactive learning visuals. These interventions help create stimulating learning environments while allowing employees to contribute directly to a child-friendly school ecosystem.
Sustainability-focused organisations can engage teams through Ecobricks Furniture Making and Best Out of Waste workshops, where employees repurpose non-recyclable plastic or waste materials into functional items such as furniture or utility products. These activities promote environmental responsibility while reinforcing innovation and circular thinking within teams.
Festive engagement can also take a more emotional and creative form. The Happy Feet Challenge invites employees to paint shoes that are later distributed to underprivileged children—adding colour not just to footwear, but to aspirations. Similarly, Mandala Art and Greeting Card Making sessions allow employees to create motivational cards and artworks for children, fostering mindfulness and compassion during the festive season.
Activities such as Indoor Plantation Drives and the Wall of Smile further extend the spirit of giving. From creating greener learning spaces to donating books and essential items in good condition, employees experience the fulfilment of contributing to long-term wellbeing and dignity.
For organisations planning Christmas and New Year activities, partnering with Smile Foundation offers more than volunteering—it offers a structured, impactful, and scalable engagement experience aligned with CSR goals. With end-to-end facilitation, community linkages, and measurable outcomes, Smile Foundation helps organisations begin the new year with purpose, connection, and a lasting social footprint.e for society at large.
India’s enthusiasm for STEM education has grown rapidly over the past decade. Coding classes for young children, robotics kits for primary schools and corporate-funded innovation labs have become familiar features of the education landscape. In policy circles and classrooms alike, STEM is increasingly presented as a shortcut to future readiness — a way to equip children early for an economy shaped by technology and automation.
This momentum is not without merit. Scientific thinking, problem-solving and numeracy are essential skills in a knowledge-driven economy. But the question confronting India’s education system is not whether STEM belongs in early education. It is whether the form and pace of early STEM, as it is currently being implemented, align with how children actually learn.
The evidence suggests a clear answer: early STEM needs restraint, not rollback. The danger lies not in introducing children to scientific thinking, but in doing so prematurely, abstractly or inequitably — in ways that risk undermining foundational learning rather than strengthening it.
What early STEM was meant to achieve
At its core, early STEM education is not about producing engineers at the age of eight. It is about cultivating habits of mind: curiosity, observation, reasoning and comfort with uncertainty. When approached thoughtfully, early exposure to scientific and mathematical ideas can support cognitive development and foster confidence in learning.
International research has consistently shown that young children are capable of engaging with scientific concepts when these are presented through exploration and play. Studies by the OECD and the U.S. National Academies of Sciences emphasise that inquiry-based, play-led STEM experiences can improve problem-solving skills and long-term engagement with learning.
India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 reflects this understanding. It explicitly calls for experiential, play-based learning in the early years, and cautions against content-heavy instruction before children have developed strong foundational literacy and numeracy. The policy’s emphasis is on learning how to think, not on mastering technical skills prematurely.
Where the current enthusiasm goes wrong with early STEM education
Despite this policy intent, the implementation of early STEM in India often departs from these principles. In many settings, STEM is interpreted narrowly as exposure to technology — coding platforms, robotics kits and digital tools — rather than as a way of thinking.
This has led to three recurring problems.
First, adultisation of learning. Concepts designed for older students are pushed down into primary classrooms, often without adaptation. Coding is introduced as syntax rather than logic; science becomes vocabulary rather than inquiry. For children who are still developing basic reading and comprehension skills, this can create confusion rather than clarity.
Second, equipment-driven approaches. STEM initiatives are frequently built around kits and devices rather than pedagogy. While tools can enhance learning, they cannot substitute for trained teachers or thoughtful curriculum design. In under-resourced schools, these kits often remain unused once initial training ends.
Third, performance pressure. Competitive STEM models — hackathons, contests and assessments — seep into early grades, turning exploration into evaluation. This risks discouraging precisely the qualities early STEM is meant to nurture: experimentation, failure and play.
The foundational learning gap
India’s foundational learning challenge adds urgency to the need for restraint. Data from the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) consistently shows that a large proportion of children in primary school struggle with basic reading and arithmetic. Introducing advanced STEM content into classrooms where foundational skills are weak risks widening learning gaps.
The World Bank’s concept of “learning poverty” — children unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10 — is particularly relevant here. When early STEM is layered on top of unresolved foundational deficits, it benefits children who already have support at home while leaving others further behind.
This is not a theoretical concern. In practice, early STEM initiatives are more easily absorbed by children from urban, middle-class families with access to devices, parental guidance and supplementary learning. For first-generation learners, the same initiatives can feel alienating and inaccessible.
Equity as the central concern in early STEM
The most compelling argument for restraint in early STEM is not pedagogical but ethical. Education policy must ask not only what works, but for whom.
If early STEM becomes synonymous with technology-heavy instruction, it risks entrenching inequality. Children in private schools may experience STEM as creative exploration, while those in government schools encounter it as unfamiliar jargon delivered without context or support.
True early STEM must be low-cost, context-sensitive and grounded in everyday experience. Measuring rainfall, observing plant growth, experimenting with balance and structure — these are STEM activities that require no screens or kits. They rely instead on attentive teaching and curricular flexibility.
In this sense, restraint is not resistance to innovation. It is a commitment to inclusion.
What restraint actually looks like
Restraint does not mean delaying exposure to scientific thinking. It means aligning learning with developmental readiness.
In practice, this involves:
prioritising play-based exploration over formal instruction
embedding STEM concepts in local, familiar contexts
focusing on questions and processes, not correct answers
avoiding early assessment and competition
investing in teacher capacity, not just materials
This approach is consistent with cognitive science, which shows that young children learn best when concepts are concrete, social and connected to their lived environment.
CSR and the temptation of scale
Corporate involvement in education has accelerated the spread of early STEM initiatives in India. While CSR funding has brought resources into schools that need them, it has also introduced pressures to demonstrate scale and visibility.
The temptation to deploy standardised kits or digital platforms across diverse contexts is understandable, but risky. Education does not scale like software. What works in one classroom may fail in another if it does not account for language, culture and teacher preparedness.
CSR in education must therefore exercise caution. Funding should prioritise teacher training, curriculum development and long-term support rather than short-term visibility. Restraint here is a mark of responsibility, not hesitancy.
Civil society and grounded practice
Some education organisations have demonstrated how early STEM can be introduced with restraint and sensitivity. Smile Foundation’s education programmes offer a relevant example from the field.
Through its Mission Education initiative, STEM concepts are integrated into primary learning through activity-based methods rather than formal technical instruction. Children engage with basic scientific ideas through observation, hands-on tasks and problem-solving linked to their immediate environment — water use, sanitation, energy and health.
Importantly, these activities are embedded within a broader framework that prioritises foundational literacy and numeracy. STEM is not treated as a standalone track, but as a way of reinforcing core learning skills. Teachers are supported to adapt activities to local contexts, ensuring that exploration remains inclusive rather than intimidating.
This approach reflects the principle that early STEM should deepen understanding, not displace fundamentals.
Aligning with intent
The NEP 2020 offers a clear roadmap for early education in India. Its emphasis on foundational learning, play-based pedagogy and reduced curricular load is well-aligned with the case for restraint in early STEM.
What is needed now is coherence between policy and practice. States, school systems and funders must resist the urge to interpret STEM narrowly or accelerate it prematurely. Instead, they should focus on creating learning environments where curiosity is protected and foundational skills are secure.
This requires patience — an undervalued virtue in education reform.
The long view
The goal of early education is not to predict labour markets two decades in advance. It is to equip children with the capacity to learn, adapt and think critically across domains. STEM, done well, contributes to this goal. Done poorly, it risks becoming another layer of pressure in an already crowded curriculum.
India does not need to retreat from STEM in primary schools. It needs to slow down, simplify and refocus. Restraint, in this context, is not caution for its own sake. It is an evidence-based strategy to ensure that early STEM strengthens learning rather than distorting it.
As India debates the future of its education system, the question is not whether children should learn science and mathematics early. They should. The real question is whether we are willing to respect how children learn — and to design systems that serve all of them, not just the most advantaged.
References and further reading:
National Education Policy 2020, Ministry of Education
Why First-Generation Learners Are Where Education Investment Matters Most
India’s debate on education reform often begins too late. It starts in secondary school, in skills training programmes, in employability dashboards and workforce projections. But decades of evidence from economics, cognitive science and public health point in a different direction: the largest returns on education investment accrue much earlier, particularly for children who begin life at a disadvantage.
First-generation learners — children whose parents have not completed formal schooling — sit precisely at this intersection of early disadvantage and high potential returns. How India supports them will determine not only individual mobility, but the productivity and equity of its future workforce.
This is not a moral claim. It is an economic one.
Disadvantage compounds early
Human development is not linear. Skills build on skills. Early cognitive and socio-emotional capacities make later learning more efficient; deficits, once entrenched, are costly to remediate. This principle, long established in developmental economics, has particular relevance in India, where a large share of children enter school without exposure to language-rich environments, structured play or stable nutrition.
For first-generation learners, the starting line is not the same. Parents value education deeply, but lack the institutional knowledge to support it. The result is not disinterest, but fragility — learning that is easily disrupted by illness, migration, household stress or climate shocks.
Data from India’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) consistently shows that children from households with lower parental education levels fall behind early in foundational literacy and numeracy. Once these gaps open in the primary years, they tend to persist into adolescence.
From an economic perspective, this is a warning sign. When foundational skills are weak, later investments in schooling yield diminishing returns. The system ends up spending more to achieve less.
Why first-generation learners offer the highest returns
Economic models of human capital formation suggest that interventions targeted at disadvantaged children in early and middle childhood generate the highest benefit-cost ratios. These returns are not confined to test scores. They include improved health outcomes, higher lifetime earnings, reduced reliance on social protection and stronger intergenerational mobility.
For first-generation learners, the marginal return on investment is especially high because the counterfactual is steep. Without support, many will remain trapped in low-skill trajectories. With timely intervention, the gains multiply across a lifetime.
This is why early remediation, mentoring and socio-emotional support matter. They do not merely help children “catch up”; they change the efficiency of all subsequent investments.
The limits of late-stage correction
India’s policy architecture still places disproportionate emphasis on secondary and tertiary interventions: scholarships, skilling programmes, STEM labs, digital credentials. These have value, but they often arrive after foundational gaps have hardened.
From a cost-effectiveness standpoint, this is inefficient. Remediating learning deficits at age 14 is far more expensive than preventing them at age 7. Yet the system repeatedly chooses the former.
First-generation learners pay the price. They are expected to absorb advanced content without the scaffolding that makes learning cumulative. Predictably, dropout rates rise, confidence falls and the returns on public and private investment decline.
Where CSR has quietly aligned with evidence
Despite its uneven quality, CSR engagement in education has often gravitated — sometimes unintentionally — toward interventions that economic evidence supports for first-generation learners.
Three patterns are notable.
First, a focus on foundational learning. Many CSR-supported programmes prioritise basic literacy and numeracy through remedial education and small-group instruction. This aligns closely with what evidence shows works: short-cycle, targeted interventions that meet children at their current learning level.
Second, integration of non-academic inputs. Nutrition support, health check-ups and psychosocial counselling are frequently embedded in CSR education programmes. From a human capital perspective, this is essential. Cognitive development is inseparable from physical and emotional well-being.
Third, sustained engagement rather than one-off exposure. Where CSR programmes commit to multi-year engagement, they mirror the economic insight that capability formation requires time and continuity, not episodic inputs.
These features matter because they raise the productivity of education spending overall.
Smile Foundation and capability formation through education investment
Smile Foundation’s education work offers a practical illustration of these principles in an Indian context.
Through its Mission Education programme, the Foundation works with children from low-income communities, many of whom are first-generation learners. The programme emphasises foundational learning, remedial support and individual attention, particularly in the early and middle grades.
Crucially, education is not treated as a standalone input. Health services, nutritional support and counselling are integrated, recognising that learning outcomes are shaped by multiple, interacting constraints. This reflects a core insight from human capital economics: isolated interventions yield limited returns when complementary inputs are missing.
By engaging families and communities, such programmes also address a less visible but critical factor — the transmission of aspiration and self-belief. For first-generation learners, confidence is not an add-on; it is a prerequisite for persistence.
Attendance, not enrolment, as the real metric
Another area where CSR initiatives often outperform formal systems is attention to attendance. Enrolment figures are a weak proxy for learning. Attendance, by contrast, captures the cumulative exposure required for skill formation.
First-generation learners are more vulnerable to absenteeism due to household responsibilities, health shocks and migration. CSR programmes that track attendance, provide transport support or address menstrual health barriers are effectively protecting the rate of return on education investment.
From an economic standpoint, reducing absenteeism is one of the most cost-effective interventions available.
What accountability should look like for education investment
If first-generation learners represent the highest-return segment of education investment, accountability frameworks must reflect that reality.
This requires shifting metrics from outputs to outcomes: from classrooms built to learning gained, from beneficiaries enrolled to skills retained. It also requires independent evaluation and longer funding horizons.
Short-term pilots may generate visibility, but they rarely alter life trajectories. Capability formation unfolds over years, not quarters.
CSR actors willing to commit to this timeline can play a stabilising role, particularly in contexts where public systems face capacity constraints.
The broader implication
India’s demographic advantage is not guaranteed. It depends on whether today’s children acquire the skills and capabilities that make growth inclusive and sustainable.
First-generation learners are central to this equation. Supporting them early is not charity; it is economic prudence.
CSR’s most valuable contribution lies not in innovation theatre, but in reinforcing what evidence already tells us works: early, sustained, holistic investment in children who start with less.
Conclusion
Education debates often oscillate between ambition and anxiety. But the economics of human development offers clarity. When societies invest early and wisely in their most disadvantaged children, the returns compound across lifetimes and generations.
First-generation learners embody both India’s risk and its promise. CSR initiatives that recognise this — and align their strategies accordingly — are not merely filling gaps. They are strengthening the foundation on which future growth depends.
The challenge now is to ensure that such approaches are not exceptions, but the norm.
Green Jobs for the Indian Youth: Progressive Nation, Protected Nature
With nearly 65% of Indians under the age of 35, the nation’s youth carry the aspirations of a rising economic powerhouse. But a critical challenge persists: employability. In a growing economy, the issue is not simply a lack of jobs, but a shortage of well-rounded, job-ready young people. Unless this skills gap is addressed, the promise of India’s demographic dividend could remain only partially fulfilled, leaving much of this generation’s potential unrealized.
Beyond technical training: The role of soft skills
Employability today is shaped by more than academic degrees or technical certificates. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 makes this clear – “soft skills” like creative thinking, resilience and curiosity are more important than ever in the workforce. Employers are looking beyond hard technical expertise to qualities like adaptability, effective communication, teamwork and problem-solving. In India, the challenge is sharper when many youth enter the job market with solid theoretical knowledge but little exposure to workplace behaviour, customer engagement or confident communication.
Global programmes have demonstrated the power of pairing technical training with soft skills development. For instance, the European Union’s Youth Guarantee, the U.S.-based Year Up, and WorkAdvance in multiple countries all show that combining sector-specific training plus soft skills coaching and job placements leads to stronger employment outcomes. These integrated models produce graduates who not only have the knowledge for a job, but also the workplace readiness to excel – yielding higher hiring rates and even long-term earnings gains.
For India, this points to a need for an integrated approach to employability where a mix of competencies is cultivated:
Technical skills – solid sector-specific knowledge and digital literacy.
Communication skills – fluency in communication, customer engagement and confidence-building.
Teamwork and problem-solving – ability to collaborate, think critically and solve real-world problems.
Adaptability and resilience – agility to learn and cope with changing technologies and work environments.
Emerging Themes Shaping Employability
As India’s economy grows and technology advances, it’s increasingly clear that a standalone college degree or an isolated short course is no longer sufficient to secure meaningful employment. The World Bank and other experts have found that blended models – combining soft skills training with practical work experience and targeted industry placements – deliver significantly higher returns on investment than traditional education or training alone. In other words, a holistic preparation makes a young person far more employable than theoretical knowledge by itself.
Global best practices reinforce this approach. Initiatives such as the EU’s Youth Guarantee, Year Up and WorkAdvance show that pairing technical instruction with “employability” skills and on-the-job learning not only accelerates job placements but also enhances long-term career growth. The evidence unequivocally is that soft skills are not optional but fundamental to workforce readiness.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 highlights several key trends and data points underscoring why soft skills matter for the future:
Digital readiness as a priority: Broadening digital access is expected to be the most transformative trend – with 60% of employers anticipating it will reshape their business by 2030. Indian youth will need technical literacy alongside adaptability and communication skills to thrive in increasingly digital and hybrid workplaces.
AI and automation reshaping roles: Technologies like AI, big data and robotics are driving both job creation and displacement. In fact, 86% of employers expect AI and information-processing tech to transform their operations by 2030. To stand out in this new market, young workers must complement hard tech know-how with resilience, complex problem-solving and critical thinking.
Economic volatility fuels demand for adaptability: Rising living costs and slower economic growth are top concerns globally. In such uncertainty, agility, creativity and emotional resilience become crucial for young professionals to navigate job instability and shifting opportunities.
Demographic shifts intensify the skills challenge: India’s expanding working-age population is a double-edged sword – a huge talent supply if adequately skilled. Employers increasingly value mentorship, motivation and self-awareness training to channel this youth potential effectively in the workplace. Young Indians will need guidance in soft skills to convert demographic advantage into productivity.
Soft skills needed for tech adoption: As fields like AI, cybersecurity and data analytics dominate emerging roles, purely technical proficiency isn’t enough. Companies seek creativity, teamwork, flexibility and empathy in candidates to ensure human collaboration enhances technology. The human touch – driven by soft skills – is what enables tech to be applied effectively.
Health, well-being and inclusivity are valued: 64% of employers globally have flagged supporting employee health and well-being as a key strategy for talent retention. Additionally, 83% of employers report implementing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. This means traits like empathy, emotional intelligence and social awareness are increasingly seen as core professional skills – attributes that improve team dynamics and innovation, and thus boost a young candidate’s employability.
Upskilling is a universal imperative: An estimated 59% of the global workforce will need reskilling or upskilling by 2030. In India, this translates into not only building new domain knowledge, but also continually honing soft skills like communication, leadership and adaptability to seize new-age opportunities. Lifelong learning mindsets – often rooted in self-motivation and curiosity – will be essential soft skills themselves.
India’s Unemployability on the Rise – Why?
Despite a growing economy and millions of young job seekers, India is experiencing a troubling skills paradox – plentiful jobs on offer, but not enough “employable” candidates to fill them. The issue of youth unemployment in India is not due to an absolute lack of jobs, but a lack of job-ready skills among graduates.
Major employers have sounded the alarm. In mid-2024, TCS reported it was unable to fill 80,000 open positions because applicants lacked the required skills. At the same time, the financial services sector had about 1.8 million (18 lakh) vacancies go unfilled in a single year despite high demand for talent. These stark examples highlight a critical gap in India’s youth development spectrum: a large portion of the educated youth are graduating without the practical skills or workplace competencies that industries need.
In short, India’s young population is struggling with “unemployability.” According to the latest data, only about 51% of Indian youth are considered employable upon entering the workforce – meaning nearly one in two young people are not adequately prepared for the jobs available. This gap stems from mismatches between academia and industry needs, insufficient vocational and soft skills training, and limited opportunities for real-world exposure. If unaddressed, the country risks losing out on the full benefit of its demographic dividend, as educated but unskilled youth remain underemployed or unemployed.
India’s Skill Development Initiatives: Progress So Far
Recognising the urgency of the skills gap, the Government of India has launched a series of initiatives to boost youth employability. Drawing inspiration from its success with Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes in manufacturing, the government introduced Employment Linked Incentive (ELI) schemes to encourage employers to create formal jobs. The logic is to provide incentives for companies to expand their workforce and they will hire more. While these schemes signal strong intent and have had some positive impact, India’s massive youth demographic means that scaling up collaboration across public and private stakeholders is necessary for a truly transformative impact.
Industry linkages lie at the heart of effective skilling. Through the Skill India Mission, public agencies like the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) have partnered with industry to align training with market demand. As of March 2024, NSDC had partnered with 62 corporate employers on 131 skilling projects, benefiting over 3.1 lakh young people across the country (including youth in 42 aspirational districts). These partnerships ensure that training curricula are relevant to industry needs and that trainees gain exposure to real work environments.
Innovative financing models are also being explored. In 2021, NSDC launched the Skill Impact Bond, a pioneering Development Impact Bond that leverages private sector investment with a pay-for-results approach. By tying funding to measurable outcomes like job placement and retention, this model increases accountability in skilling programmes. Early results are promising – between November 2021 and March 2024, about 29,365 candidates were enrolled (74% of them women), with over 23,000 completing certification and 19,209 securing job placements under the Skill Impact Bond initiative. Such outcome-focused approaches ensure that training efforts actually translate into employment, especially for women and underserved groups.
These steps mark commendable progress in laying the foundation for youth skilling. However, given the pace of change in job markets and technology, sustaining and strengthening this foundation is crucial. Technical training must be continually updated and, importantly, augmented with the soft skills and support systems that enable youth to thrive in the workplace.
How CSR–NGO Partnerships Strengthen Government Efforts
While government programmes set the macro framework for skills development, it is clear that they cannot do it alone. To truly empower rural and marginalized youth to compete and thrive in the job market, collaborative support from the private sector and civil society is essential. This is where CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives and NGO partnerships can play a transformative role, complementing government efforts with innovation and grassroots reach.
Corporate-NGO partnerships can add value in several key ways:
Bridging the Last Mile: Ensuring that skilling schemes reach remote and rural youth who need them most. NGOs can mobilise and train young people in underserved areas – especially women in aspirational districts – who might otherwise be missed by urban-centric programmes. This last-mile connectivity helps make youth in every region employable, not just those in the metros.
Adding Soft Skills: Embedding crucial soft skills development into technical training programs. CSR-funded projects can integrate modules on communication, teamwork, professional etiquette and adaptability alongside teaching trade skills. This combination produces well-rounded candidates ready for workplace challenges, rather than just technicians.
Local & Inclusive Solutions: Designing community-driven skilling models tailored to local needs. For example, a non-profit might run digital literacy classes for rural girls, or partner with industry to create “green jobs” training for semi-urban youth in sustainable agriculture or solar panel installation. Such localised innovations ensure inclusivity – bringing marginalised groups into the skilled workforce with programmes relevant to their context.
Connecting Training to Jobs: Creating apprenticeship and placement pipelines. Companies can provide on-the-job training slots or internships for trainees, while NGOs offer mentorship, counseling and follow-up support to improve retention. This handholding through the transition into formal employment is often the key to turning training into a stable career.
Fostering Innovation & Accountability: CSR funding can support outcome-oriented and tech-enabled models that the government alone might not implement. For instance, performance-linked funding (where training partners are paid more when trainees get jobs) can be piloted, or digital platforms can be used to track alumni employment progress. These innovations drive greater impact and ensure that resources are used effectively, with measurable results.
In essence, CSR–NGO partnerships can amplify the reach and effectiveness of government skilling efforts. They bring in additional resources, fresh ideas, and on-ground experience working with communities. By working in tandem – government setting broad policy and quality standards, companies providing expertise and demand insights, and NGOs delivering training and mentorship – India can build a skilling ecosystem that is holistic and future-ready.
Smile Foundation’s Livelihood Programme: Bridging the Skills Gap
One example of a successful collaborative approach is the Smile Foundation’s Skill Training and Employability Programme (STeP), which focuses on empowering youth with a blend of market-oriented skills and soft skills. This livelihood programme targets young people – often school or college dropouts from economically weaker sections – and equips them with the competencies needed to secure decent jobs in growing industries.
Holistic Training: Smile Foundation’s STeP curriculum goes beyond technical know-how. Yes, participants receive industry-relevant training (for example, in sectors like BFSI – Banking, Financial Services and Insurance – retail management, digital marketing, healthcare, etc.), but they also undergo rigorous soft skills development.
Communication skills are honed through spoken English and customer handling exercises Confidence-building is achieved via personality development and interview preparation
Workplace etiquette and teamwork are taught through group projects and role-plays
Modules oncomputer literacy ensure youth are digitally savvy.
This holistic training bridges the education-to-employment gap by producing graduates who can not only do the job, but also fit into modern workplace culture from day one.
Industry Partnerships: A cornerstone of the programme is its close partnership with employers. Smile Foundation collaborates with over 400 companies – from retail chains and banks to hospitality firms and IT/BPO companies – to ensure training aligns with real job requirements. Industry experts frequently conduct guest lectures or practical sessions, and many trainees visit corporate offices or shop floors for exposure. Such industry linkages also create a pipeline for job placements: employers often recruit directly from STeP batches, knowing that these youth have been trained in both hard and soft skills. By aligning with the Government’s Skill India initiative and working hand-in-hand with industry, the programme increases the chances that students find sustainable jobs after training.
Impact at a Glance:
9,000+ youth trained through Smile Foundation’s livelihood programme to date
5,500+ youth placed into jobs across sectors (a majority of graduates gain employment within months of completing the training)
74 skill training centres operated across 8 states in India, ensuring local access to quality training
800+ industry exposure and counselling sessions conducted, connecting youth with mentors and real-world insights
400+ employment partners actively providing job opportunities, internships or apprenticeships to program graduates
100,000+ painters upskilled through a specialized collaboration (the Berger Paints iTrain project) across 25 states, demonstrating the scale of impact possible when corporates join hands with skilling initiatives
Through a combination of classroom training, personalised counseling and on-the-job exposure, Smile Foundation’s STeP is enabling thousands of young Indians to become confident, competent contributors to the workforce. Each success story not only transforms one life but also has a ripple effect on families and communities – inspiring others to pursue skill development.
Stories of Impact
To understand the human impact, consider a few individual journeys shaped by soft skills training:
Priyanka (name changed)
Coming from a low-income background, Priyanka enrolled in Smile Foundation’s BFSI training course. Over several weeks, she gained technical knowledge in banking operations, loans, and financial products. Equally important, she built soft skills in customer engagement, problem-solving and professional etiquette. Graduating with this well-rounded preparation, Priyanka now feels job-ready and has secured an entry-level position at a microfinance bank, where her confidence in dealing with clients is setting her apart.
Aadhya (name changed)
Once uncertain about her future due to limited means, Aadhya joined Smile Foundation’s 21st-century skills programme. The training equipped her with basic computer literacy, resume writing and interview skills, and workplace soft skills such as communication, teamwork and time management. Today, Aadhya is employed by a reputable organisation in Hyderabad – the first girl in her family to attain formal employment. Her success has not only lifted her family’s economic status but also changed mindsets in her community about women working.
Suman (name changed)
Suman grew up in a semi-urban town where career options seemed limited. She enrolled in Smile Foundation’s Retail Management course under STeP. During the course, she learned practical skills like customer service, inventory management, billing systems and workplace behaviour. Alongside, she underwent intensive soft skills coaching – improving her communication, self-presentation and self-belief. Upon completing the training, Suman started working as a retail associate at a large supermarket. She aspires to grow step by step into supervisory roles and become a role model for her younger siblings. Her journey exemplifies how confidence and soft skills can unlock ambition.
These stories underscore that when youth are given the right opportunities, training and encouragement, they are capable of overcoming socioeconomic barriers and excelling in the professional world. Soft skills often provide the crucial spark that turns their knowledge into action and their aspirations into reality.
Turning Intent into Progress: A Call for Collective Action
India’s demographic window – its youthful population – is still open, but to harness it fully we must go beyond technical know-how and provide young people with the “invisible advantage” of soft skills. The challenge is urgent, yet the pathway is clear. It requires a collective will and coordinated action across all stakeholders.
By combining the strengths of government initiatives, industry expertise and the on-ground reach of NGOs, we can build an ecosystem where every young Indian has access to the full spectrum of skills needed for success. It means embedding training, mentoring and placement support into local contexts, and ensuring that even a rural youth or a first-generation graduate in a small town receives the same polish and opportunities as one in a big city. It means proving that when we invest in soft skills and human potential at scale, the returns are immense – not just in employability, but in inclusion and national growth.
For the coming year, Smile Foundation encourgaes that in 2026, each of us – whether an employer, an educator, a policy-maker or a citizen – we must take a role, in nurturing the next generation’s talents. Through innovative partnerships and dedicated livelihood programmes, we can equip our youth to not only find jobs, but to thrive and become leaders in their fields. Together, let’s turn intent into progress. Partner now to support and amplify these efforts and help secure the three pillars of youth development: Employability, Inclusion and Scale.
Ultimately, empowering India’s youth with soft skills is about enabling them to drive the nation’s progress, with confidence and competence, into the future.
Every morning, before the first bell rings, Sunita Devi has already put in hours of invisible work. She has coaxed a child to come to school after maybe a night of domestic violence, reassured another who hasn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon, and calmed a student terrified about an exam she knows he is not prepared for. By the time Sunita steps into her classroom in a government school on the outskirts of Patna, she has already played the roles of counsellor, mediator, caregiver and crisis manager.
None of this appears in her job description.
Across India’s low-resource schools, teachers carry an emotional workload that is rarely acknowledged, measured or supported. They are expected not only to teach, but to absorb the anxieties, disruptions and vulnerabilities that children bring into classrooms shaped by poverty, migration, illness and instability. This emotional labour is not incidental to teaching; for millions of educators, it has become central to the job.
But policy conversations around education continue to focus almost exclusively on infrastructure, curriculum and learning outcomes. The emotional work of teachers remains largely invisible.
Teaching in the shadow of social distress
India has made significant progress in expanding access to schooling. Enrolment rates are high, and classrooms are fuller than ever. But the profile of students has changed. A large proportion of children in government and low-fee private schools are coming from households facing economic precarity, food insecurity and social stress.
Teachers are often the first adults outside the family to notice signs of distress. A sudden drop in attendance, unexplained aggression, withdrawal or declining performance frequently has less to do with academic difficulty and more to do with what is unfolding at home.
Studies on child mental health in India suggest rising levels of anxiety, behavioural challenges and emotional dysregulation among school-going children, trends exacerbated by the pandemic and its aftermath. In low-resource settings, where access to counsellors or psychologists is minimal, teachers become the default emotional support system.
This is labour that requires empathy, patience and constant emotional regulation. It is also labour for which teachers receive little training.
The cost of caring without support
Unlike academic instruction, emotional labour cannot be standardised or scheduled. It spills into breaks, after-school hours and weekends. Teachers worry about children long after they have left the classroom.
Over time, this takes a toll. Research globally has linked high emotional demands in teaching to burnout, stress and attrition. In India, where teacher shortages already strain the system, emotional exhaustion compounds existing challenges.
A recent survey by teacher unions highlighted increasing reports of fatigue, anxiety and a sense of being overwhelmed among educators in government schools. Many teachers speak of feeling responsible for problems they are not equipped to solve, from child abuse to severe poverty.
The irony is stark: while teachers are expected to nurture emotionally resilient children, there is little investment in their own emotional well-being.
Administrative load and emotional labour of teachers
Emotional labour does not exist in isolation. It intersects with growing administrative demands. Teachers in low-resource schools often juggle teaching with data entry, compliance reporting, election duties and census work. Each additional task chips away at time and emotional bandwidth.
When a teacher must choose between completing paperwork and listening to a distressed student, the system has already failed both.
This overload also affects how emotional labour is perceived. Because it is not formally recognised, it is treated as an individual failing rather than a systemic issue when teachers struggle to cope.
Why emotional labour of teachers matters for learning
The connection between emotional well-being and learning is well established. Children who feel safe, seen and supported are more likely to attend school regularly, participate in class and persist through difficulty.
Teachers are central to creating this environment. Their ability to manage classrooms, build trust and respond to emotional cues directly shapes learning outcomes, especially for children facing adversity.
Ignoring the emotional labour of teachers, therefore, is not just an issue of workforce welfare. It undermines educational quality itself.
Gendered expectations in the classroom
Emotional labour in teaching is also deeply gendered. A majority of primary school teachers in India are women, and societal expectations around caregiving often spill into professional roles. Female teachers are implicitly expected to be nurturing, patient and self-sacrificing.
This expectation normalises emotional labour as part of “good teaching” rather than recognising it as work that requires support and boundaries. Male teachers, too, face emotional demands, but are often less encouraged or trained to address them.
The result is a silent burden disproportionately carried by women, with little acknowledgment or institutional backing.
Training gaps and missed opportunities
Teacher training in India has traditionally focused on pedagogy, subject knowledge and classroom management. Emotional literacy, trauma-informed teaching and self-care are rarely prioritised.
But many teachers are navigating classrooms where students have experienced loss, displacement or chronic stress. Without training, teachers rely on instinct, personal experience and improvisation.
This gap is not inevitable. Countries that have invested in social-emotional learning frameworks for teachers report better outcomes for both educators and students. India’s National Education Policy acknowledges the importance of holistic development, but translating this vision into teacher support remains uneven.
Where civil society steps in
In this landscape, civil society organisations have begun to play a complementary role. Some NGOs working in education recognise that supporting teachers emotionally is essential to sustaining learning interventions.
Smile Foundation’s education programmes offer one such example. While the organisation’s primary focus is on improving access and learning outcomes for children in underserved communities, its work increasingly acknowledges the emotional dimensions of teaching.
Through teacher training modules, mentoring and on-ground support, Smile Foundation equips educators to handle classroom challenges that go beyond textbooks. Teachers are trained to recognise signs of distress, manage mixed-ability classrooms and engage with families sensitively.
Importantly, these interventions do not position teachers as therapists, but as supported professionals with referral pathways and peer networks. By reducing isolation and offering practical tools, such programmes help mitigate emotional burnout.
Smile Foundation’s integrated approach — combining education with health, nutrition and psychosocial support — also reduces the emotional load on teachers by addressing some root causes of student distress outside the classroom.
The blind spot with emotional labour of teachers
Despite growing recognition of mental health and well-being in education discourse, teachers’ emotional labour remains a policy blind spot. Budget allocations focus on infrastructure and teacher recruitment, but rarely on emotional support systems.
School counsellors are scarce, especially in government schools. Where they exist, they are often shared across multiple institutions, limiting their impact.
A more realistic approach would treat emotional labour as a shared responsibility rather than an individual burden. This means investing in counsellor networks, peer support groups, and ongoing professional development focused on emotional resilience.
Reframing teacher support as system investment
Supporting teachers emotionally is often framed as a “soft” intervention. In reality, it is a strategic investment. Teachers who feel supported are more likely to remain in the profession, engage students effectively and adapt to reform.
As India grapples with learning recovery post-pandemic, teacher well-being becomes even more critical. Expecting educators to rebuild learning while ignoring their emotional strain is neither fair nor effective.
Towards recognition and respect
Making emotional labour visible does not mean adding another expectation to teachers’ already full plates. It means acknowledging what they are already doing and providing the support structures to sustain it.
This includes:
integrating emotional literacy into teacher training,
reducing administrative overload,
strengthening referral systems for child mental health,
and fostering school cultures where teachers can seek help without stigma.
Civil society initiatives demonstrate that such support is possible even in resource-constrained settings. Scaling these practices requires political will and sustained investment.
Conclusion
The emotional labour of teachers in low-resource schools is one of India’s quiet educational pillars. It keeps children coming back to classrooms, holds communities together and absorbs shocks that the system is slow to address.
Recognising and supporting this labour is not optional. It is central to any serious effort to improve learning outcomes and build resilient schools.
As the country debates the future of education, it is time to look beyond metrics and mandates, and to acknowledge the emotional work that makes learning possible — one teacher, one classroom, one day at a time.
