Avnita Bir is an Indian educator and economist. She is the principal of the

R. N. Podar School Ramniranjan Podar Senior Secondary School, also known as R N Podar School, is a private secondary school in the Santacruz West neighbourhood of Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is a day school with morning and afternoon shifts. The school has 2,7 ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

. She has worked in the Indian education system for more than 15 years, and she was a curator for Learn Shift India 2012, a conference held in Delhi that was aimed at exchanging ideas on transforming Indian education. In the early years of her career, she was appointed to give special lessons in Economics to the children ( Rahul Gandhi and

Priyanka Vadra Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (''née'' Gandhi; born 12 January 1972) is an Indian politician and the general secretary of the All India Congress Committee in charge of Uttar Pradesh. She is the daughter of former Prime minister of India Rajiv Gandhi ...

) of the late Prime Minister,

Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to beco ...

Education

Avnita Singh parmar was born in

Amritsar Amritsar (), historically also known as Rāmdāspur and colloquially as ''Ambarsar'', is the second largest city in the Indian state of Punjab, after Ludhiana. It is a major cultural, transportation and economic centre, located in the Majha r ...

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

, India on 31 October 1957 into a Punjabi Hindu Khatri family. She graduated from

Lady Shri Ram College for Women Lady Shri Ram College for Women (LSR) is a constituent women's college, affiliated with the University of Delhi, and has a legacy in women's education. History Established in 1956 in New Delhi by the late Lala Shri Ram in memory of his wife ...

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE) ...

before moving to the Delhi school of economics to obtain her post graduate education in economics. She also passed the

University Grants Commission (India) University Grants Commission (UGC) is a statutory body set up by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Government of India in accordance to the UGC Act 1956 and is charged with coordination, determination and maintenance ...

( NET) examination for professorship in economics. She also took part in many conferences and workshops related to teaching and learning, at places including Harvard Graduate school of economics and IIM Ahmedabad.

Career

Bir has worked with educational institutions of India, including

Mallya Aditi International School Mallya Aditi International School (often abbreviated as MAIS or Aditi) is a private school located in New Town Yelahanka, Bangalore, India. . In a short span of 38 years, Aditi has grown to be considered one of the top schools in the country, ...

, Hyderabad Public School and several others, as head of the department and as a coordinator, before joining Podar as a principal.

Recognition

Bir has won awards including the EQFI India Education Awards 2008 for Excellence in Education from the Education Quality Foundation of India and Educational Leadership Award in 2011 by ICS. She has been a member on the board of education reforms committee of Kapil Sibal and later, had been appointed as a member of the governing body of CBSE India. She was featured in newspapers, magazines and bulletins conducted by news channels like NDTV which concentrated on education and other issues related to students. She has been selected for Kon Boon Hwee Scholars award (2013) for the inspirational mentorship she has offered. Additionally she is one of 80 educators selected by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

for their Mentor School program, which was held in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, Spain. FICCI FLO conferred on her the Outstanding Woman Achiever Award in the year of 2014 for her contributions in the field of education. She was a presenter and a co-panelist, representing India at Google Education Symposium organised at Mountain View, California, November 2014. At around the same time in 2016, acknowledging the pivotal role she played in the fields of Technology and Education, she was appointed a member in the advisory board of Google's Global.Edu, a global initiative to bring on-board various leaders, educators, teachers and students for transforming education. In 2023, she was conferred the Lokmani Lal lifetime excellence award by Maharshi Patanjali Vidya Mandir, an award to recognise and honour exceptional teachers from across the country. She has co-authored two books on economics.

References

External links

Avnita Bir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bir, Avnita Living people Punjabi Hindus People from Amritsar Indian women economists Indian curators Lady Shri Ram College alumni Delhi School of Economics alumni 1957 births Women school principals and headteachers Scholars from Amritsar Indian academic administrators Women scientists from Punjab, India 21st-century Indian women scientists 21st-century Indian economists Educators from Punjab, India Women educators from Punjab, India Rahul Gandhi