Professor Poonam Batra

Poonam Batra serves as Professor of Education at the University of Delhi, where she has made significant contributions to educational reform and policy development in India. Her expertise spans multiple domains including public policy in education, curriculum development, pedagogy, social psychology of education, teacher education, and gender studies. As a co-creator of the Bachelor of Elementary Education (B.El.Ed.) program in the 1990s, she helped establish India's first four-year professional elementary teacher education program. Her distinguished career includes serving as a Nehru Memorial Fellow and member of the Indian Supreme Court's Commission on Teacher Education. Her recent research focuses on examining coloniality in Indian educational reform, comparative education imperatives, and the politics of school and teacher education reform. She has been instrumental in shaping national education policy through her role as co-author of key policy documents and her critical analysis of educational reforms, including the National Education Policy 2020. Her work consistently advocates for equitable and quality public education while addressing the challenges of teacher education in India's diverse linguistic and cultural context