Shekhar Mehta is the architect of the T-E-A-C-H Program . Under the Basic Education and Literacy Area of Focus of Rotary International; the T-E-A-C-H program has been adopted by thousands of Rotarians, Inner Wheel members & Rotaractors across the country to achieve Total Literacy and Quality Education in India.
Receiving support from various State Governments, Corporates and PSUs has helped the program grow exponentially thus laying its footprint in more than 25 states.
Mehta has also collected many accolades from eminent personalities like Prime Minister of India Sri Narendra Modi, Minister of Human Resource Development Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Former Human Resource Development Minister Sri Prakash Javadekar, Noble Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, Chairman of Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives and Rural Development Rajashree Birla, India Activist Shanta Sinha ; and others, for the T-E-A-C-H program initiative.
Under Shekhar Mehta’s leadership, 6 Mega Literacy summits were organized, each of which were attended by more 3,500 guests from across South Asia. Eminent speakers from India and OUTSIDE, adorned the event with their speeches. The Summits served as an effective Public Relations medium; as well as garnered several partnerships with government and corporates.
Shekhar Mehta also headed a panel discussion organised by the National Literacy Mission ¬Authority (NLMA) of the HRD Ministry’s Department of School Education and Literacy, to commemorate the ¬International Literacy Day at the Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra, Delhi. Former HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar was the chief guest and it was attended by Upendra Kushwaha, the HRD Minister for State, Secretary (¬Department of School Education and Literacy) Rina Ray; Joint Secretary, (AE) and ¬Director General – NLMA Sachin Sinha and Al Amin Yusuf, Advisor for Communication for South Asia, UNESCO Office, Delhi.
In the current year, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India approved the idea behind T-E-A-C-H program’s Adult Literacy model of engaging and encouraging students to teach adult non-literates of their respective areas. The model will soon be implemented under GOI initiative ‘Padhna Likhna Abhiyan’.The aforementioned model was introduced to the then Education Minister, Sri Prakash Javadekar by Shekhar Mehta.
Admist the pandemic prelevance, challenging the education of children ; Mehta led the partnership between Rotary India and The National Council of Educational Research and Training ( NCERT) ; whereby Rotary India donated e- learning content to be telecast for Class 1-12 over all NCERT Television channels across the country. The collaboration was endorsed digitally in the presence of Union HRD Minister , Ramesh Pokhiyal ‘Nishank’ . Addressing the glaring digital divide acroos urban and rural population in India, more than 100 million children will benefit from this initiative.
