This quarter felt like pay-off of sustained efforts – exceeding program targets and making hopeful bets for young people's futures. But that is not the whole picture.
Dreaming by the Quarter
Trust is agency
Quarterly Report, Jan-Mar '26
Often, in the hope that things will work out,
you share only what's going well
4.6X jump in alumni earning within 12 months of certification (YoY)
4.6X jump in alumni earning within 12 months of certification (YoY)
01
Our bet it is if youth get early exposure through paid internships and short-term gigs, they are more likely to begin full-time careers.
5,000+ students certified across career programs
02
Exceeding the year’s target across career skills, technical advancement, and freelancing programs.
1,266 students explore freelancing across 7 industry tracks
1,266 students explore freelancing across 7 industry tracks
03
In partnership with Axis Bank Foundation (ABF), youth are engaging with mentors across creative arts, engineering, tech, finance, fashion, and commerce - testing freelancing as both part-time and full-time pathways.
You stay quiet about the challenges and chip away at them alone
Alongside progress, these are the questions and constraints we work through:
- AUnclear career pathways
- BDifficult system realities
- CEvaluating impact at scale
But sharing what isn't working yet is not weakness, it is direction
Naming challenges makes it easier to tackle them.
Mentoring
sustains field-led innovations
End-to-end support
refreshes public education practices
On-ground connect
means young women act on their ambitions
Long-term vision
brings alignment and momentum
Scattered innovations that start and disappear, spark a structure to hold them
One-on-one mentoring for field-led innovations
Without a structured way to test and measure ideas emerging from the ground, you risk losing them to the archive – along with the opportunity to cater to youth’s emerging needs. By bringing a deliberate lens to the process, we ran small, rapid evaluations grounded in student needs.
The result was 13 field-led innovations, each with a clearly named problem, a proposed solution, and defined next steps - developed not from the center, but by the field team, coached through an innovation pipeline on what it takes to move from idea to pilot.
Listening to overworked teachers inspires a space where
they experiment
Turning goodwill into signed commitments
UTTAR PRADESH
Turning goodwill into signed commitments
01
Zonal summits brought TPOs, principals, and industries into focused, pre-scoped conversations, resulting in a formal, year-round commitment in a space where industry-institution engagement has historically lived in diaries and informal understandings.
“What you’ve done here is the finest example for the department to follow,” said an ITI additional director. With L&T as a visible industry champion, and over 50 letters exchanged among industry, polytechnics, and ITIs, the shift from one-off drives to round-the-year relationships has begun.
HARYANA
Deeper alumni connect, stronger ownership
02
We piloted student-led placement cells to improve alumni connect: students mapped industries, organized guest lectures and placement drives, and connected peers to opportunities, leading to one student landing a package of ₹1.2 lakh per month.
The model worked visibly enough that the Haryana Higher Education Council will roll it out across colleges statewide. Training and Placement Officers are taking ownership, with one of them inviting us to evaluate their process, “Come, see what we’re doing, there may be ways it can be improved."
End-to-end support improves public classrooms
BIHAR
End-to-end support improves public classrooms
03
This year, instructors experienced a complete cycle of professional development: capacity building workshops, peer learning communities, and structured on-site visits. Classes in ITIs are more interactive, with group work, AI-assisted lesson plans, and demonstrations.
Students from marginalized backgrounds, who often struggle to express themselves, are now asking sharper questions, registering for apprenticeships, and completing self-led AI courses - then asking where they can learn more.
Where young people are held back, you find ways they
can be agentic
Young women act on their ambitions
In Bihar, young women navigate barriers that rarely appear in placement data. Cultural expectations limit mobility, and in some cases, family support is split between hesitant mothers and encouraging fathers. Yet, they are among the most proactive.
When Akanksha Paswan (a Mechanic Diesel student at Tarenga ITI) heard of a placement drive, she walked in on instinct - and walked out with an offer from JCB. "My skills as a Diesel Mechanic have value today, not someday in the future," she said. Thirty others like her have joined Hitachi in Chennai, migrating across the country despite the cultural challenges.
The goal is not just the job itself but what it opens - a trajectory of learning, a case for their
own capability, and dismantling the idea that earning is only a son's responsibility.
And after shifting goalposts, a long-term vision renews momentum
- AKeeping an eye on the mission
- BA big picture changes how you show up
That's when you know, sharing challenges - alongside breakthroughs - completes
the picture
the picture
And a sincere picture creates the trust that sustains the
long work
Over time, this trust begins to show up in how systems think, act, and sustain change.
Government teachers adopted work-based learning (WBL) in their language, Uttar Pradesh
Industrial Training Institutes formalized wellbeing counseling for students, Uttar Pradesh
State government allocated dedicated budget for on-the-job training (OJT), Haryana
