John Kurrien has worked for many decades mainly focusing on the development and education of disadvantaged rural and urban disadvantaged children and youth in India. His formal qualifications include a Master of Arts in Teaching English, State University of New York, and a Ph.D. from the Department of Education Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin at Madison. Having taught at school and university level in the US, in 1976 he joined the education faculty of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.
In 1983, he co-founded the Pune-based NGO - Centre For Learning Resources (CLR) – and retired after almost 3 decades as its Director. During that period, he facilitated CLR projects, partnering with government agencies and NGOs in improving the development and education of vulnerable infants, young children, disadvantaged school students and out-of school/ college youth in different states of India.
Since 1976, John Kurrien has engaged in research, teaching and training; implementation of projects and development of training and learning materials. He has published on a variety of education issues including maintaining two blogs on the Right to Education Act (RTE) and the National Education Policy (NEP), and participated in several state, national, and international discussions and bodies.
More recently, his research and talks on disadvantaged communities has focused on Indian Muslims culminating in a non-commissioned and independent online report, Lifting Indian Muslims from the Bottom of the Development and Education Ladder: A Transformative Agenda for the 21st Century, 2022, which is available on a dedicated website www.educationofmuslimsindia.org