A foundation, not a marketplace.
Takshila Foundation was set up on a plain observation: the people who teach are the people who earn least from teaching. Every platform that promised to fix that eventually charged the learner. We took the other route — fund the educator, keep the classroom free, and publish what we spend.
Named for a school that charged nothing.
Takshashila taught for centuries without tuition. Students arrived, studied under a teacher who was kept by the community, and left. We are not claiming its lineage — we are borrowing its arrangement, which worked for far longer than ours has.
Keep learning free at the point of use, and make teaching a livelihood rather than a donation of someone's evenings.
A generation that learns without debt, taught by educators who were never asked to work for exposure.
What we hold to.
Free at the point of use
No fee, no trial, no locked module. If a learner has to reach for a card, we have failed the premise.
Teachers are paid
Every hour taught is an hour compensated. Volunteering is welcome; unpaid labour dressed as opportunity is not.
The books stay open
What comes in, what goes out, what it bought. Published quarterly, including the quarters that look bad.
No theatre
No streaks, no badges, no countdowns. Those exist to hold attention, not to teach — we would rather earn the hour honestly.
The goals we are measured against.
- 01Keep every published course free, permanently, with no tiering.
- 02Pay every educator at or above the regional teaching rate.
- 03Reach learners with intermittent connectivity, not only broadband cities.
- 04Publish the full ledger four times a year.
Where this has gone, and where it is going.
Six years in, with the part that matters still ahead: an endowment large enough that the free classroom stops depending on next year's fundraising.
- 2019
The foundation is registered
Three educators, one room in Pune, and a rule written into the trust deed: the learner never pays.
- 2020
First twelve courses go live
Recorded on borrowed equipment during the lockdown. Every educator was paid, which meant the founders were not.
- 2022
Knowledge partners open up
Educators publish on their own terms and are paid per hour taught. The model stops depending on goodwill.
- 2024
Offline-first delivery
Courses sync to low-end devices and run without a connection — the districts that need this most have the least bandwidth.
- 2026
Mentorship & innovation
In progressLearners bring problems from their own districts; mentors and builders help ship the answer. In progress now.
- 2028
A self-funding endowment
PlannedThe end state: educator pay funded in perpetuity, so the free classroom never depends on next year's fundraising.