Our Team
Shubhra Chatterji
A well-known educationist in India, Ms. Chatterji, or Shubhra di, to all of us is our Director and Vice President. She has been a part of several missions and panels in India in the K-12 spectrum. Ms. Chatterji has also been invited by the MHRD to be a member of JRM on Teacher Education for Uttar Pradesh and Tripura, 2013 and a member of JRM, SSA for Nagaland, 2014. She has served as a member of the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) Delhi and NCTE, Eastern Region for 3 years and appointed as member of different Joint Review Missions set up by Government of India from time to time. She has worked as Consultant with Room to Read, Nepal to set up their Early Grade Reading Programme. She has also worked as Education Consultant for UNICEF, Kolkata for capacity building of teacher educators and academic supervisors in the government system on improved strategies for teacher training and teacher support. Presently, she is working with the state Government on several of its projects such as Education to Employability, Early Childhood Care and Education, Life Skills etc. She has supported the government to develop various curricula for its programmes. Her visions are our driving force and her sharp reviews keeps us all on our toes! Shubhra di is an avid reader and enjoys watching a variety of movies and documentaries.
Arpita Ghosh
Driven by the passion to create safe spaces for children, Arpita has always dreamt of enabling them understand their individual potentials and identify roles towards being a responsible citizen. She believes that empowering the marginalized without making them aware of their responsibilities will not take the society anywhere. Started as a Content Developer, she made a shift in her career toward the social development sector to actualize her ambition. At Vikramshila, she works as the Assistant Coordinator of NabaDisha – an initiative by Kolkata Police and implemented by Vikramshila. She facilitates monthly meetings with the Nabadisha teachers, helps the coordinator with the documentation, supervise the centers and handle the interns time to time. Apart from her fondness for this sector, she is a certified non-clinical counselor, who is also pursuing an extensive Course on Counseling and Stress Management from Jadavpur University.
Atanu Sain
Mr. Atanu Sain has been working with Vikramshila since 1994. Travelling and interacting with diverse groups of people are his twin passions. He loves a good argument supported with logic and reasoning and the analysis of human behaviour is one of his core areas of interest. Atanu has been working as a teacher educator from the beginning of his career in Vikramshila. Over time, he has developed different modules of capacity building, and implemented them across a variety of contexts. Developing modules and materials on specific subjects such as Language, Maths and Science are his prime forte. In addition to this role, Atanu oversees a number of projects as program advisor and plays a strong role in organizational capacity building within project teams. A lover of both fiction and non-fiction, he finds Science and Mathematics very intriguing so he loves to engage with teachers and students on these subjects. He strongly believes that education can transform society, by eradicating disparity and discrimination which exists within the same. Vikramshila has given him a platform towards working with his beliefs.
Mehedi Hasan
Fresh out of college, about 10 years ago, Mehedi joined Vikramshila in 2009 and has been associated since. Mehedi joined as part of a project that looked at quality education in Madrasahs across West Bengal and soon we discovered an efficient trainer in him. Currently associated with the ITE in Madrasahs project, he had been part of it since the very first day. Given his keen interest in Science and Mathematics, he also conducts training in different states for Science and Mathematics programs as well as is an integral part of the camps organized for students. He describes his 10-year journey at Vikramshila as exciting. Vikramshila, he says, has managed to blend his passion for teaching, his love for Science and Technology together; giving him space and platform to think innovatively. A true professional for a cause, he takes initiatives in his locality to help out those in need. In his leisure time, he enjoys playing cricket with youngsters and spending time with his son!
Mustafiz Iqbal
Mustafiz Joined Vikramshila in 2008. A postgraduate in Bangla, Mustafiz began his career with us by undertaking a 6-month project in Tripura on leadership development. After his return to Kolkata, has been involved with several training programs and projects that gave him the opportunity to travel widely in West Bengal and Tripura. His forte has been training in Bengali language pedagogy, social science and mathematics pedagogy. He has worked with the tribal groups and minority communities in Tripura and West Bengal. He enjoys developing new Teaching Learning Materials in Bengali and is also an exemplary proof reader which is a boon to Vikramshila where content is developed every single day. Mustafiz is currently leading a project in North 24 Parganas and Purulia which aims to offer high quality education to children of marginalized communities in a bid to create child-labour free villages. A very creative person, Mustafiz enjoys writing and travelling to the hills.
Namrata Ghosh
Namrata started her career in the development sector in 2006. After her post-graduation at the Delhi School of Economics, she joined the Azim Premji Foundation as a program researcher which took her to different parts of the country that gave her exposure to the depth and scope as well as the gaps and challenges of the public education system in India. She has been involved in the Assessment Led Reforms and Computer Aided Learning Programme with the state education departments of Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Rajasthan. She received a comprehensive foundational training from Digantar, Jaipur, which helped her gain a strong theoretical background in education. After joining Vikramshila in 2009, she has provided support and technical assistance in program design, knowledge management, development of grants and proposals and creating tools and instruments for monitoring and evaluation. She has been instrumental in the development of a library programme within Vikramshila’s supplementary learning centers for language acquisition, following the principles of early grade reading. Namrata enjoys quiet evenings at home net surfing, reading a variety of genres in fiction and playing with her daughter. She also enjoys watching sitcoms, romcoms, detective and psychological thrillers!
Ria Banerjee
After her post-graduation in Sociology, Ria started her career as a primary teacher in a private school but she grew a natural interest towards the development sector. She is an ardent believer of equality of opportunities and strongly feels that ‘quality education’ should be accessible to all children. She has been an active volunteer assisted in various programs of education, birth control, self sustainability and family assistance. Currently, in Vikramshila, she is leading Vikramshila’s partnership with the U.S. Consulate General; Kolkata to offer career leadership training, using English a tool for empowerment for 35 underserved women who have been survivors of gender based violence. Modules are offered on communicative English, digital literacy, financial literacy and career development, leading to internships. She has worked as a core tea member in the Active Citizenship project which has given her opportunities to work in diverse educational environments – rural schools, urban schools and madrasas as well as learning centers. Because of her keen interest in reading and strong abilities in writing, Ria has been saddled with a number of assignments ranging from social media management, documentation to curriculum development and planning, with special emphasis on English Language teaching. Even though she is a student of Sociology, her interests lie in a wide array of topics ranging from Physics to Economics. She is open to new ideas and new situations, loves interacting with people from diverse backgrounds, enriching herself about their unique cultures. Ria loves baking, reading literature of various genres, writing blogs and listening to music. She is currently learning to play the ukulele.
Riti Mukherjee
Riti joined Vikramshila in 2011, after completing her studies in history and archeology. She started her career in Vikramshila by being a part of a research study on ‘the idea of quality education’ which was undertaken in partnership with TISS. The surveys, interactions and fieldwork intensified her passion for working in the development sector and trying to improve the learning conditions for children in government schools. As a member of the organization’s central resource unit, Riti has been an active facilitator in a number of projects. She has developed in unison with her teams, a number of important modules on language, lifeskills and social science. She has been leading the organizations’ active citizenship project which works on curriculum development and attempts to change the pedagogy used in the classroom in teaching of social science. This gave her exposure to a variety of schools, madrasas and learning centers. She has travelled extensively across Bengal and Tripura to support organizational programs on early childhood education, lifeskills and others. Riti loves working with children as well as teachers. She has exemplary mastery over the Bengali language as a result of which she is often the scribe, editor and proof reader for a variety of content generated in Vikramshila. She is, along with Ria our crowned social media manager. Apart from her work she likes reading short stories, novels and poems. She enjoys travelling and exploring different cuisines.
Somdutta Bhowmick
Somdutta joined Vikramshila in 2018. Prior to this, she was working as a Website Administrator in a start-up. Although from a technical background, she joined Vikramshila for her keen interest in the development sector and it has been a wonderful learning experience since then. Somdutta started her Viramshila journey as a Mathematics Resource Person in the Education to Employability project where she gained hands on experience of working in government schools, developing lesson plans and TLMs. She has also been a part of science and mathematics intervention in the government madrasas. She loves science, technology, working with numbers and data and her current project is giving her an opportunity to do the same. An introvert by nature, Somdutta enjoys reading, cooking and trying different cuisines.
Sanjay Bhattacharya
Sanjay has been associated with Vikramshila since 2008. From science background and teaching experience. he likes to work with the subjects like Mathematics and Science. Vikramshila gave him that scope to fulfil his desire. Here, he has been engaged in developing different type of modules, teaching learning materials and workbooks on math and science. He believes actual problem can be identified when we work with teachers and students directly. He worked in the Education to Employability project where he had an opportunity to engage directly with the teachers and students. Prior to this job he worked as designer in a publication house. So designing is the another part of his interesting area. He loves to design different things with new idea. Currently I am in the training department and engage with teacher training. I love to watch movies and also like to listen music.
Satya Gopal Dey
Satya Gopal Dey - With more than three decades of experience in Child Protection and community development in the context of planning, monitoring and evaluation, Satya Gopal Dey joined Vikramshila Education Resource Society as Head – Child Protection and Advocacy and later took over the additional responsibility of Human Resource. Prior to this he has worked in CRY for over 25 years in senior management position. With post-graduation in Child Rights Law from Bangalore National Law University & Psychological Counselling & Wellbeing NCEB (Jadavpur University) & his areas of interest being in child rights, child protection, child rights legislations, policies, interface and advocacy with government stake holders, he has made significant contributions in print media, talk-shows in different regional & national TV/Radio and presented papers in various seminars on Child Rights issues. He is a guest faculty on the subjects on Child Rights and Child Protection in Administrative Training Centre – Government of West Bengal and also the recipient of State level Shishusree Award on ‘Best Article on Child Rights in Bengali Print Media’, conferred by WBCPCR, Government of West Bengal. Also notified by National Commission for Child Rights, Government of India, as a Jury in a public hearing on Child Protection organized at Imphal, Manipur. His hobbies are writing poems and listening to music especially folk and Rabindra Sangeet