STiR Education is an international NGO that supports education systems to reignite intrinsic motivation, so that every child, teacher and official is motivated to learn and improve. Since 2012, it has reached more than 200,000 teachers and 6 million children across 3 Indian states and one quarter of all districts in Uganda.

By 2025, they aspire to reach 25 million children across at least six countries (India, Uganda, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Brazil and Egypt).

Children today face an increasingly complex world. This trend includes the pandemic, the climate crisis, increased inequality and rapid technological changes. All children will need to learn and adapt throughout their lives, and education systems need to support them by instilling motivation for learning and improvement.

The STiR approach has three distinctive characteristics:

• 1) Behaviour change. STiR’s work is about changing behaviours and attitudes by reigniting intrinsic motivation at all levels of education systems. It wants children to see participation and learning as an active choice and to develop a desire to keep on learning more. Teachers will reflect on how to effectively deploy teaching strategies and also show a desire to constantly improve their classroom practice, and government officials will recognise their role in driving improvement. STiR reinforces these behaviours across every activity and uses practical behavioural measures to understand changes.
• 2)Iterative improvement. Behaviour change takes time. So STiR’s programme enables incremental improvements at every level that contribute to a system shift. It introduces peer networks for teachers and officials – monthly meetings for small groups of peers to strengthen connections, foster mutual support, and ensure sustainable improvement through learning new strategies to embed into their professional practice.
•  3) Governments and other partnerships. STiR works alongside national and state governments to ensure ownership and long-term sustainability. It initiates deep learning partnerships with the governments, with all activities delivered by existing government officials to build strong ownership. Their teams work together to co-customise and co-design content for each geography, while STiR work closely to ensure that the programme aligns with their policies and priorities. This also helps keep the costs lower than $1 per child annually.