Purpose

This research explores how Riverside School in India develops an ecosystem for quality learning, by means of social entrepreneurship, in response to concepts and challenges of quality learning in the wake of UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Design/methodology/approach

This research examines India’s Riverside School, which has earned a national and international reputation for its education innovation and social entrepreneurship. A case-study strategy spans 2015-2017.A 1-month field visit is conducted each year, involving participatoryobservation, semistructured interviews, and documentary analysis. For analyzing findings and results, a theoretical lens of social entrepreneurship is developed and utilized.

Findings

The studied school was found to base its curricular development, lesson planning, and pedagogical practices on a user-centered design thinking and on a 3R value framework, ‘Relevance-Rigor- Relationship’, on which an ecosystem for quality learning is based. The development of the ecosystem for quality learning is also found to be multidimensional. The first dimension involves how quality learning is produced. The respective process not only meets international standards but is specialized and school-based,and responds to ‘teacherpreneurship’, which means specialization and professionalization of teachers’ jobs. It also refers to teachers who cooperate and create in an interdisciplinary manner. The second dimension concerns how quality learning is delivered. The respective process is permeated using learner-centered pedagogy and metacognition as well as reflective evaluation methods. The third dimension supports quality learning by virtue of not only parents’ recognition and participation but also community service and social activism.

Originality/value

In the past, the Millennium Development Goal 2 (MDG 2) policy heavily stressed the universalization of primary education, with a focus on quantitative indicators such as educational access and enrolmentrates. Accordingly, the definition and concept of quality education wasnarrowed down to standardization of measurements favoring cognitive development. The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) policy is currently centered on the core concept of quality education. After the launch of SDG 4 in 2015, the international society expects an increase in numbers of private sector organizations (including profit enterprises and social enterprises) to invest in educational innovation and promote educational quality. In the post- 2015 era, the UN educational agenda emphasizes not only learners’ cognitive development but also their noncognitive development, with the aim of using education to not only reduce poverty and develop the economy but also foster democratic values and responsible citizenship. Consequently, key questions remain unaddressed, such as how quality learning can be practiced and achieved and how an ecosystem for quality learning can be constructed by social entrepreneurs? These questions are crucial to the post-2015 UN educational agenda but are neglected in the relevant literature to which this research makes an original and valuable contribution.