Transformative education via WhatsApp

Most early-learning programmes need classrooms, staff and devices. Rocket Learning needed only a phone number.

Rocket Learning uses WhatsApp to turn parents and government childcare workers into a child's first teachers, sending short, playful daily learning activities into groups run through India's vast public daycare network.

THE PLACE
India

THE INVESTMENT
Investing in infrastructure the state already owns

THE WIN
Reached millions of children in a few years

THE PROBLEM

India runs the largest public childcare system on earth: the Integrated Child Development Services network of Anganwadi centres, which reach tens of millions of young children.

But learning in the early years depends heavily on parents, most of whom, in low-income communities, have never seen themselves as their child's teacher and lack the confidence, time or materials to play a structured role.

The National Education Policy of 2020 put early childhood care and education at the centre of national priorities, but the everyday gap remained: how to reach parents and frontline workers, at scale, at almost no cost.

TAKING ACTION

Rocket Learning was built by five co-founders, Utsav Kheria, Vishal Sunil, Namya Mahajan, Azeez Gupta and Siddhant Sachdeva, around a simple insight: the phone is already in the home. Working through Anganwadi workers, it creates WhatsApp groups, digital classrooms, that connect parents with their child's centre.

Each day parents receive short, playful, low-data activity videos, do them with their child, and send back photos and videos. Public recognition, weekly report cards and virtual awards keep families motivated.

Rocket Learning describes its model as business to government to consumer: it works through and for the state rather than around it, aligning with the National Education Policy and national early-childhood missions.

INVESTMENT SUCCESS!

Rocket Learning has grown from a pandemic-era experiment to a programme reaching around four million children through more than 100,000 digital classrooms across several Indian states.

The organisation reports that the average child in a Rocket Learning cohort reaches roughly the top 30 percent of a comparison class, and that parental engagement time has risen by 40 to 50 percent.

An independent randomised controlled trial by J-PAL, led by Karthik Muralidharan and Abhijeet Singh under the RISE programme, is under way to test the model's impact on children's learning and on parent behaviour, alongside the organisation's own extensive A/B testing.

KEY WINS

4 million+ children reached

100,000+ WhatsApp digital classrooms

Under 5 rupees per child per year (variable cost)

WHY INVESTMENT WORKED

Rides infrastructure the state already owns

Built on the Anganwadi network and on WhatsApp, so it scales without new buildings or devices.

Activates parents as first teachers

The intervention is the relationship between parent, child and frontline worker, not an app the child uses alone.

Engineered for engagement

Relentless A/B testing and AI-driven, personalised nudges in local languages keep families coming back.

Radically cheap

Variable costs under five rupees per child per year make national scale affordable for government.

Government as partner from the start

Works hand in hand with state administrations and national ministries, not as a parallel pilot.

Built to be evaluated

A culture of measurement, and an independent randomised trial, sit at the centre of the model.

SCALE AND SPREAD

Rocket Learning partners at scale with state governments and district administrations, and works with national bodies including the Ministry of Women and Child Development and the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development.

It aims to help public systems deliver high-quality early learning across every state of India, embedding its content and approach within government rather than running a stand-alone service.

PARTNERS AND PHILANTHROPY

Rocket Learning is anchored by Central Square Foundation, one of its earliest funders, and backed by a range of philanthropic and corporate partners including Google.org, the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Microsoft, Accel and Amazon, alongside The Agency Fund and The/Nudge.

Its research partner is J-PAL. The model is built on public-private collaboration, working with civil-society organisations such as Samagra and Akanksha in addition to government.

FRIENDSHIP BENCH AT A GLANCE

WHERE

India (multiple states)

FOUNDED

2020

LED BY

Rocket Learning; co-founders Utsav Kheria, Vishal Sunil, Namya Mahajan, Azeez Gupta and Siddhant Sachdeva

FOCUS

Early childhood education; parent and Anganwadi-worker engagement

CORE IDEA

WhatsApp digital classrooms that make parents and frontline workers a child's first teachers

HEADLINE RESULT

4 million+ children reached; parental engagement time up 40 to 50 percent

EVIDENCE

Independent J-PAL randomised trial under way; extensive internal A/B testing

PHILANTHROPY

Central Square Foundation, Google.org, Draper Richards Kaplan, Microsoft, Accel, Amazon, The Agency Fund, The/Nudge

COST

Variable cost under 5 rupees per child per year

1. Rocket Learning (official site). https://rocketlearning.org/
2. The Agency Fund, A/B testing for the social sector: Rocket Learning. https://theagencyfund.substack.com/p/ab-testing-for-the-social-sector
3. Central Square Foundation, EdTech and AI (Rocket Learning and the J-PAL RCT). https://www.centralsquarefoundation.org/edtech-and-ai
4. YourStory, Rocket Learning founders discuss technologies to transform early childhood development (2024). https://yourstory.com/2024/09/rocket-learning-founders-discuss-new-age-technologies-transform-early-childhood-development
5. Forbes, Rocket Learning profile. https://www.forbes.com/profile/rocket-learning/