Ms. Alpa Nigam

Alpa Nigam is a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching (DAI) Fellow, National ICT Awardee, educator, mentor, and innovator with over 15 years of experience in transforming education in rural India. She currently serves as the Head Teacher of Primary School Tilauli, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, where she has led remarkable changes in student learning outcomes, community participation, and inclusive educational practices.

When Alpa joined the school in 2010, attendance was low and learning levels were poor. Through innovative, activity-based teaching that integrated art, storytelling, games, and technology, she transformed the school into a vibrant learning environment, increasing attendance from 35% to 95% and bringing several out-of-school children back to education.

As a strong advocate of inclusive education, Alpa developed a web-based Dyslexia Screening Tool during her Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Rochester, USA. The tool supports early identification and intervention for children with reading difficulties and reflects her belief that every child deserves an opportunity to succeed. She actively works with children with diverse learning needs and promotes differentiated instruction to ensure that no learner is left behind.

Alpa believes that schools become successful when communities become partners in education. She has organized literacy programs for female guardians, awareness campaigns on health, hygiene, menstrual health, child labour, and environmental sustainability, and conducted over 90 village chaupaals to promote education and social development. Through summer camps and community outreach, she successfully brought 14 out-of-school children back into the education system.

Her commitment to literacy led her to establish a crowd-funded village library with over 11,000 books, creating a culture of reading among children and adults alike. Students regularly create their own books, comics, wall magazines, and audio stories, making them active contributors to the learning process.

Beyond her school, Alpa has made significant contributions to educational policy and teacher development. She has trained more than 125,000 teachers across India and developed educational modules, assessment tools, e-content, and teacher training resources for NCERT, SCERT, DIKSHA, and NISHTHA. Her expertise spans foundational literacy and numeracy, ICT integration, inclusive education, life skills, assessment, and teacher professional development. To support teachers in Foundational Literacy and Numeracy, Alpa founded the Professional Learning Community (PLC) “Neev.”

Alpa believes that learning should be joyful, inclusive, and connected to real life. She strives to create nurturing learning environments where every child can develop confidence, creativity, critical thinking, and a lifelong love for learning.