The need for professionally trained cadre to serve the complex needs of elementary education is being strongly felt by all concerned within the education sector. Existing teacher education programmes have not been able to fill this basic requirement; hence, the need for a well designed programme that combines theory and practice. In this context, the Trust is supporting a 'Collaborative Post-graduate Programme in Education' at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), which aims to make a major contribution towards professionalizing elementary education through discipline building and providing well trained professionals for the sector.

TISS was set up in 1936 and offers post-graduate programmes in Social Work, Personnel Management and Hospital Administration. The institution is also interested in deepening its engagement with the field of elementary education and hence has made an institutional commitment to a proposed post graduate Masters programme in Elementary Education. This programme aims to strengthen professionalisation of the sector by providing an opportunity to study elementary education more intensively, to develop knowledge and expertise relevant to the Indian context and build awareness of theory and field experiments. The programme is housed in TISS and a degree would be awarded by TISS in its capacity as a Deemed University.

The programme is of collaborative nature, having evolved through intensive collaboration of six leading academic institutions and field based non-profit organizations that have made significant contribution to the field of elementary education. Such collaboration aims to enable the programme to retain its academic rigor and be responsive to the needs and challenges of the field. The programme would be offered in dual mode, imparting instruction through three weeks of contact classes per semester, followed by distance learning for 15 weeks, taking into account potential working students, who may not be able to enroll in a full-time residential programme. The programme will comprise of ten courses, including seven compulsory and three optional; and a field attachment leading to a project report, to be completed over a minimum of two years. The optional courses are proposed as a way to develop expertise and specialization in chosen areas of professional practice or research. The faculty is drawn from collaborating institutions, academic institutions, non-profit organisations and from within TISS. Some of the leading scholars in the field are involved in the curriculum development process. The programme is designed to have an impact on the professional growth of students, as well as on developing elementary education as a discipline, especially pre-service teacher education and curriculum development.