Chitra Naik

Chitra Jayant Naik (15 July 1918 – 24 December 2010) was an Indian educationist, writer, social worker, the chairperson of the Indian Institute of Education and the expert member of the Planning Commission of India. She was the chairperson of the Non-formal Education Committee set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and was a member of the National Literacy Mission. The Government of India awarded her the fourth highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1986.

Early life Chitra Naik was born on 15 July 1918 at Pune in the western Indian state of Maharashtra and graduated in arts with honours. She continued her studies to get another graduate degree in education and secured a doctoral degree (PhD) from Mumbai University. and did post doctoral studies at Columbia University, New York. a research institute affiliated to Mumbai University, to facilitate higher education and research facilities for the teachers in the Greater Bombay area. Chitra Naik was a collaborator in the endeavours of Jayant Naik, an inductee of the UNESCO Roll of Honour of the 100 significant educational thinkers of the last 25 centuries. She served as the director of IIE and under her leadership, the institution set up training centres for women in the disciplines of home nursing, first aid, maternal and child care, sanitation and nutrition. and a permanent member of the CABE Committee on Decentralised Management of Education (1993) set up by the Central Advisory Board of Education She served as a member of the National Literacy Mission She was in close association with the Government of Maharashtra and served in various capacities as the Director of Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, Director of Higher Education and Director of Education. (Marathi), Educational innovation in India, and Lokmanya Tilak as Educational Thinker. She has also written many books for children of which four were published by the National Book Trust in fourteen languages. This was followed by the Rajiv Gandhi Award for social Service and the UNESCO Jan Amos Comenius International Award and, in 2002, she received the Jamnalal Bajaj Award from the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation.