Varkey Foundation

Varkey Foundation

Formation	2010
Founders	Sunny Varkey
Type	Charitable foundation
Purpose	Education, teacher training
Headquarters	London
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Sunny Varkey, Chairman Vikas Pota, CEO
Website	varkeyfoundation.org
Formerly called	Varkey GEMS Foundation

The Varkey Foundation, initially the Varkey GEMS Foundation, is a global charitable foundation focused on improving the standards of education for underprivileged children. It was formed in 2010 by Sunny Varkey, the founder and chairman of GEMS Education, the world's largest operator of kindergarten-to-grade-12 schools. The foundation's main focuses are improving global teacher capacity by training tens of thousands of teachers and principals in developing countries; providing access to education via a variety of programmes and projects; and advocating for change in, and conducting research that can help develop, education policies worldwide.

The Varkey Foundation has partnered with a variety of major global organizations including UNESCO, UNICEF, and the Clinton Global Initiative. In 2013 it launched the Global Education and Skills Forum, an annual education summit dedicated to addressing the world's educational needs. After analyzing the public status of teachers worldwide, in 2014 it launched the annual Global Teacher Prize, a $1 million award to an outstanding pioneering teacher who has had a widespread impact.

The foundation was formed by Sunny Varkey in 2010 as the strategic philanthropic arm of GEMS Education, and was initially called the Varkey GEMS Foundation. Its stated intention is to impact 100 impoverished children for every child enrolled at GEMS schools, or 10 million children globally, via projects such as enrollment and education-access initiatives, worldwide teacher-training programs, advocacy campaigns, policy input through strategic partnerships, and physical projects such as building classrooms, schools, and learning centers.Bill Clinton launched the foundation.

Beginning in 2013, the foundation's Teacher Training Programme committed to train 250,000 teachers within 10 years in under-served communities across the world. The programme began in Uganda in May 2013, and consists of a low-cost, five-day training which the recipients then cascade by training further teachers in their country. In its first year the programme trained 6,000 teachers in Uganda, and by mid 2015 it had reached 12,000 teachers. The program is broadening to other developing countries in Africa and elsewhere.

The teacher training programme moves lessons away from focusing on students' ability to remember and repeat facts; instead, it focuses on encouraging students to apply, analyse, and create based on what they remember. The programme trains teachers to create a culture of personalised learning, with greater student participation, cooperative learning activities, and exploration of ideas. Rather than simply relying on "chalk and talk" methods of standing at the front of the classroom, teachers are taught to interact with students, and to accommodate different learning needs – including those of pupils who learn best through visual, auditory, or kinesthetic methods.