Inclusive Design and National Education Policy: Lessons from Grounded Nutrition Initiatives in Schools

By Archana Sinha, Nourishing Schools Foundation

This year marks 15 years of impact for Niiti Consulting, and we at Nourishing Schools Foundation are glad to have journeyed alongside them in advancing equitable, community-rooted learning solutions. Our collaboration has been shaped by a shared belief—that education must be contextual, inclusive, and deeply connected to the communities it serves.

 At the Nourishing Schools Foundation, our work lies at the intersection of education, nutrition, and community engagement. Over the years, our partnership with Niiti Consulting has helped us document and deepen this work, translating field insights into evidence-based strategies that support the goals of the National Education Policy (NEP) and build meaningful change in underserved communities.

Through our programmes in schools, children aged 9–14 learn through interactive games and activities about nutrition, hygiene, and the environment. These life skills are essential building blocks for overall development and directly support the National Education Policy’s (NEP) vision of experiential, holistic education.

The NEP 2020 emphasises the importance of foundational literacy and numeracy, while also promoting life skills and holistic development. Our approach to nutrition education aligns closely with this. By empowering children aged 9–14 years to understand and improve their own nutritional health, we are laying a strong foundation for lifelong learning and wellbeing.

Our toolkit, co-designed with community insights and tested in diverse geographies, equips students to become changemakers within their families and schools. Activities are hands-on, age-appropriate, and rooted in their local food cultures.      

However, equally important is the inclusive design process behind the development of the toolkit.  As detailed in our joint reports with Niiti Consulting, our toolkit design is informed by continuous feedback, monitoring data, and community priorities, ensuring it remains relevant, engaging, and inclusive. For example, our toolkit for schools includes games like “Guess Who,” which feature foods from children’s local diets, such as bajra in Rajasthan and tengamora in Assam. We’ve also added blank cards so children can suggest foods from their homes and communities.

Data has also played a central role in our collaboration with Niiti. Through baseline, midline, and endline surveys, we’ve tracked changes in dietary behaviour, hygiene practices, and engagement levels. The data has guided continuous improvement, such as phasing out toolkit items with low engagement and adding new ones that address key challenges identified through surveys.

Community engagement has been essential to sustaining change. We’ve regularly invited parents to school meetings to discuss survey results, highlighting both progress and shared challenges. These meetings often lead to reflection on household practices and open up spaces for shared problem-solving. Students, too, have driven change in their communities. Many have set up kitchen gardens in their schools and communities, which often continue even after our two-year intervention concludes. These gardens become a living classroom, reinforcing learning and resilience.

We’ve seen first-hand how inclusive design, when built on respect, trust, and listening, can shift the needle on learning outcomes. Children who were previously disengaged from classroom learning now take pride in applying their toolkit knowledge at home. Our surveys show that nutrition-focused activities help reinforce core curricular competencies such as reading, arithmetic, and science. Many of the 330+ government schools in our programme report improved student outcomes.

Our work with Niiti Consulting has helped distil these lessons into structured research, drawing the link between foundational nutrition education and the broader goals of the NEP. Together, we’ve shown that children in resource-poor settings do not lack potential; they often lack relevant, responsive, and inclusive systems that can nurture that potential.

As we celebrate Niiti Consulting’s 15-year milestone, we’re proud to be part of this journey. Our shared belief in community-led, data-informed, and equity-focused interventions has allowed us to build a model that is both scalable and deeply rooted. We look forward to continued collaboration and to building a future where every child has the knowledge and agency to live a healthy, nourishing life.