The Genesis of LiftEd: What it Takes to Improve Foundational Learning at Scale
By Shraddha Iyer & Srushti Joshi
The first lessons many of us ever learned did not come from a classroom, but from a kitchen table, sounding out words from a book or counting on our fingers to find the right answer. These skills we build in our early years lay the groundwork for lifelong learning. Yet for millions of children in India, foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN)—the ability to read with comprehension and perform basic mathematical calculations by Grade 3—remains out of reach.
FLN has long been a challenge in India and school disruptions due to COVID-19, air pollution-induced school closures, floods, and other crises exposed and exacerbated deep structural gaps within the education system, particularly the fragility of continuity between classroom and home learning.
At the same time, these disruptions revealed important lessons for the future of education. They demonstrated that learning need not remain confined to classrooms alone and highlighted the growing need to strengthen the education system. They also underscored deeper systemic issues: uneven institutional capacity among public school system actors, limited mechanisms to incentivise innovation, accountability, and evidence-based decision-making, and ultimately, an excessive focus on inputs over outcomes.
Recognising the need to address these challenges and improve FLN outcomes, the Government of India revamped National Education Policy (NEP 2020) and launched the NIPUN Bharat Mission (2021) to ensure every child in India becomes proficient (‘nipun’ in Hindi) with FLN competencies by 2026-27.
The genesis of LiftEd was against this backdrop.
LiftEd was designed to work in alignment with the NIPUN Bharat Mission, leveraging collective action, finance, and innovation to strengthen FLN in India and impacting the lives of ~6.5 million children by 2028. Through a three-pronged approach encapsulated within a $20 million initiative, LiftEd seeks to strengthen the systems that shape how FLN is delivered, supported, and sustained.
Pathways to Stronger Learning: LiftEd’s Three-Pronged Approach
LiftEd was intentionally designed to demonstrate how innovative, outcome-linked financing and public–private partnerships can drive change at scale. Specifically, it seeks to accelerate progress on FLN outcomes, leverage private capital to expand the pool of financing available for foundational learning, and embed more accountable and results-oriented practices within public education systems.
As one of the first efforts in India to deploy such a fund structure at scale, LiftEd is generating valuable insights into the design and application of outcomes-based finance (OBF) for education, laying the groundwork for more impactful, scalable, and sustainable financing models. The initiative operates through a complementary three-pronged approach:
- Development Impact Bond (DIB): The LiftEd DIB takes a ‘systems change’ approach to improving FLN, working with on ground stakeholders who influence education at scale. Our 4 education partners work with state governments and school facilitators in select districts across 5 states (Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh) to train and build their capacity to improve FLN levels. By working with block and district officers, school principals, and teachers, we impact more lives across a longer period due to a ripple effect. The LiftEd DIB uses the principles of OBF, where the flow of funds is linked to the achievement of predetermined targets (validated by third-party evaluators). This puts learning outcomes for children at the heart of its focus.
- EdTech Accelerator: Recognising the importance of learning beyond the classroom, the LiftEd EdTech Accelerator extends FLN support into the home environment. It supported education partners to develop high-quality and contextually relevant EdTech solutions for children aged 4-10 from low-income communities. By leveraging technology to complement formal schooling, the LiftEd EdTech Accelerator supported early learning and reinforced foundational skills, particularly in contexts where access to additional learning resources remained limited. Importantly, the accelerator also incorporated a performance-linked scale-up grant mechanism, rewarding solutions that demonstrated strong evidence of engagement and learning impact. This embedded an outcomes-oriented approach within the accelerator model while enabling promising innovations to expand their reach.
- District Education Innovation Challenge: To further strengthen outcomes orientation within government systems, LiftEd recently launched the District Education Innovation Challenge (DEIC), led by the Government of Jharkhand through the Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC). DEIC introduces a pull-based incentivisation mechanism that encourages all 24 districts in Jharkhand to adopt effective practices by promoting micro-innovations, championing data-driven governance, and recognising improvements in performance. By rewarding results rather than prescribing solutions, the DEIC creates demand for innovation and accountability within the system, complementing the supply-side investments made through the DIB and Accelerator.
Together, these three instruments reflect LiftEd’s integrated approach to systems change—combining capacity-building, technology innovation, and incentivised innovtion to strengthen how the education system functions and delivers learning outcomes over time.
From Design to Delivery: Early Results from LiftEd
As LiftEd’s interventions mature, early evidence points to promising progress across both learning outcomes and systems strengthening.
The LiftEd EdTech Accelerator reached more than 3 million children across over 20 states in India through seven EdTech partners. Evaluations from the programme highlighted the potential of well-designed, contextually grounded digital tools to support foundational learning at scale. Emerging insights suggest that impact was driven not by technology alone, but by how tools were designed and embedded—including the use of local-language content, interactive learning features, and sustained engagement with caregivers and teachers.
Notably, programme data showed that 57% of weekly active users engaged with the platforms for at least 30 minutes per week, indicating sustained learner participation. At the same time, the programme reinforced the importance of continuous iteration, user feedback, and alignment with local realities to address persistent barriers around access and engagement.
Encouraging trends are also emerging from the LiftEd DIB as it completes three years of implementation and approaches its final year. Midline results indicate positive learning gains at a relatively low per-child cost of INR 377. These outcomes have been driven not by isolated interventions, but by sustained system-level efforts: strengthening data use at the block level, supporting middle-tier education officials and mentor cadres to provide structured pedagogical feedback, and improving classroom practice through structured lesson plans and teaching-learning materials.
Beyond programme geographies, there are also early signs of institutionalisation of best practices from the LiftEd DIB. States have begun adopting mentoring frameworks, formalising classroom observation practices, and standardising approaches to teacher development, suggesting that successful practices are gradually diffusing into broader government systems.
Meanwhile, the launch of DEIC introduces a new dimension to this work by creating incentives for districts to prioritise outcomes, experimentation, and data-driven governance. While still in its early stages, DEIC represents an important step towards strengthening demand-side accountability within public education systems.
The Insights from the Evidence: Cross-Cutting Lessons from LiftEd
While each of LiftEd’s instruments operates differently, several common lessons are beginning to emerge.
1. Outcomes-linked financing must adapt to context: LiftEd demonstrates that there is no single model for embedding outcomes orientation within education systems. Across its three instruments, performance incentives have been tailored differently based on context and objective—from outcomes-linked payments in the DIB, to performance-based scale-up grants within the Accelerator, to district-level incentives through DEIC. Together, these approaches suggest that outcomes-based principles can be flexibly designed to strengthen accountability and performance across different parts of the education ecosystem.
2. Systems change depends on strengthening implementation capacity: The experience of the DIB highlights the importance of investing not only in classrooms, but also in the broader systems that support teaching and learning. Middle-tier education officials—such as Block Education Officers and mentor cadres responsible for monitoring and supporting schools—have emerged as critical actors in driving instructional improvement. Increasingly, these actors are being seen not merely as administrators, but as instructional leaders and mentors capable of shaping classroom practice through regular coaching and feedback.
3. Technology works best when embedded within learning ecosystems: The Accelerator reinforced that digital tools alone cannot solve foundational learning challenges. Their effectiveness depends heavily on how well they are integrated into children’s broader learning environments. Solutions that incorporated local-language content, interactive design, and meaningful caregiver engagement showed stronger potential for sustained usage and learning reinforcement. The experience also highlighted the importance of designing for low-resource contexts, where issues such as device access, digital literacy, and connectivity continue to shape adoption and impact.
4. Partnership and trust are critical for institutionalisation: Across LiftEd, one of the most important enablers of systems change has been the development of trust-based partnerships between governments, implementation partners, and funders. Governments are increasingly showing confidence in implementation partners to co-design and lead key initiatives, while evidence-based collaboration has helped create space for experimentation and adaptation. These shifts, while gradual, are essential for ensuring that effective practices become embedded within systems over time rather than remaining programme-specific innovations.
LiftEd’s experience to date suggests that improving foundational literacy and numeracy at scale requires more than standalone programmes or short-term funding. It requires strengthening how systems function: how capacity is built, how evidence informs decision-making, how incentives reward outcomes, and how effective practices become institutionalised over time.
While LiftEd represents one approach to this challenge, its emerging lessons reinforce a broader principle: durable improvements in education are most likely when governments, funders, and implementation partners work together to embed change within systems themselves.