Monal Jayaram is the Vadodara-based co-founder and Director, School of Education and Systems Change, Piramal School of Leadership (PSL, estb. 2010), an initiative of the Mumbai-based Piramal Foundation (estb. 2006) – the philanthropic arm of the Indian multinational conglomerate Piramal Group (annual turnover : Rs 9,782 crore) with interests in healthcare, life sciences, drug discovery, financial services, alternative investment and real estate.

Currently, PSL’s 169 staff & 284 Fellows are spread across seven regions in India, helping to bring positive change in education and supporting the development of leadership skills in public school systems through specially designed programs. They are also working towards promoting positive masculinity among boys through a number of courses introduced in the school curriculum.

Newspeg. Last December (2024), the Piramal Foundation signed a five-year partnership agreement with the Himachal Pradesh government setting the stage for widespread implementation of the Social, Emotional, and Ethical Learning (SEE Learning) program across the state and the integration of 21st-century skills and leadership development in schools statewide to ensure systemic change.

History. A postgrad in Art History from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Jayaram’s professional journey began in 2001 with a seven-year stint with Pratham Gujarat, a non-profit where she led the team for the Urban program and its curriculum development. In 2009, she signed up with the Kaivalya Education Foundation as program manager for two years prior to signing up with the Piramal Foundation in 2011.
Last May (2024), Jayaram was appointed the Co-Chair of the South Asian Special Interest Group (SIG) at the Comparative & International Education Society (CIES).

Direct talk. “Learning is not only about minimum reading, writing, and numeracy skills — it is about nurturing a passion for lifelong learning and the ability to learn, grow, and evolve. Therefore at the Piramal School of Leadership, our goal is to transform education and public school systems by providing 21st century education to children that prepares them to be future-ready; Leadership Development and Personal Transformation programs which empowers education officials in government systems and communities to serve children better, and Organization Development of Government Institutions program to transform the institutional culture and build-in compassion. Towards this end, we have collaboratively developed seven potential solutions — Social Emotional, and Ethical Learning (SEE Learning), Project-based Learning, Aesthetic Literacy, Physical Literacy, School to Work, Compassionate Gender-transformative Education, and Digital Literacy. Our solutions are integrated into the government system to make a sustainable impact. Over the past 15 years, our interventions have demonstrated behavioural change across middle managers and teachers, and improved learning outcomes in 21st-century competencies like critical thinking, creativity, compassion, life-long learning, and feelings of liberation among students,” says Jayaram

Future plans. Till date, the PSL team has engaged over 100,000 schools countrywide through its interventions across multiple districts in Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, and Rajasthan. “We plan to expand these initiatives across every state in India through collaborations with state governments and help implement specially designed programs for these schools,” Jayaram enthuses.

Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru)