Founding Charter

Full name

PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation – India.

Short display

PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation.

Short form

the Council.

Descriptor

A national forum advancing responsible, research-led AI innovation in Indian schools.

To be used wherever a description is needed. No longer or warmer description is authorised.

Founding Chair

Ms. Sri Lakshmi, in office from 29 August 2026, on the terms set out in Article 6.

Convener

PrepGraph, as founding organisation, research and knowledge partner, funder and secretariat.

Inaugural term

2026-27, being twelve months from the Founding Chair's acceptance on 29 August 2026, renewable under Article 16.

Address for correspondence

council@prepgraph.com, being the address for notices, declarations and requests under this Charter. Correspondence under this Charter is acknowledged within five working days and answered within thirty days, and where a name or a record is to be removed the removal is completed within fourteen days. This is the Council's service standard, and no other instrument may state a different one.

Address for concerns

A breach report under Article 5, a report of misuse under Article 14, and any concern about the Chair, the Secretariat or PrepGraph are sent to council@prepgraph.com, marked for the Founding Chair, and are considered under Article 5.

Public address of record

The Secretariat maintains one public web address, council.prepgraph.com, at which this Charter and every approved output are available without charge, registration or request. That address is printed in every output, and every output is also deposited on publication in a public archive that PrepGraph neither owns nor controls, named in the output, so that the record does not depend on one address.

Language of record

English. Outputs may be translated; where a translation diverges, the English record prevails. A translation the Council has not approved is not a Council output.

Version of this text

Version 1.0, adopted 29 August 2026. Every later version is dated, and every superseded version is retained and remains readable under Article 15.

Responsible adoption

To establish what responsible use of AI in a school looks like in practice, and to state what doing it properly costs a school in staff time, money and supervision.

Educator capability

To advance the working competence of teachers, so that AI augments professional judgement rather than displacing it, and to describe how a school can tell which is happening in its own classrooms.

Student readiness

To advance critical, responsible and independent use of AI by students, treated as a competence that is taught and assessed, not as a tool that is issued.

Academic innovation

To examine how AI changes teaching, assessment and the identification of learning gaps, and to separate measured improvement from novelty, including by naming claims that the available evidence does not support.

Ethical governance

To help correspondents, trustees and principals decide what to adopt, what to refuse, what policies and consents to hold, who is accountable, and how the consequences are to be measured.

Research evidence

To build an Indian evidence base on what AI does to learning, published in full with its instruments and its limitations, including findings that are negative, null or inconvenient to a funder.

Responsible AI in Schools

Privacy, bias, transparency, age-appropriate use, human oversight, academic integrity, child safety and ethical deployment. Work here includes model policies a school may adopt and the questions a school should be able to answer about any system running on its premises or on its pupils' data.

Teacher AI Enablement

Teacher understanding of AI, productive classroom and preparation use, AI literacy, and augmentation rather than replacement. Work here addresses what a teacher needs to know and how a school can establish whether they know it.

Student AI Readiness

Critical and responsible use by students, including verification, attribution, over-dependence and the limits of a generated answer. Work here treats readiness as a competence to be taught and assessed.

Academic Innovation

Personalised learning, learning-gap identification, formative assessment, academic intelligence, differentiated teaching and new learning models. Work here states plainly what evidence a claimed benefit would need before a school relies on it.

School Leadership & Governance

What AI a school should adopt, what it should reject, what policies and consents it needs, who is accountable when a system errs, and how outcomes are to be measured. Work here is addressed to correspondents, trustees, principals and academic heads.

Research & Evidence

An Indian evidence base on the effect of AI on learning; research ethics where children are involved; open publication; and measurement that survives scrutiny by a reader who is unsympathetic to the result.

Publication conditions

Nothing is published in the Council's name unless it has been approved under Article 12 and carries the name of a reviewer with no interest in it. The founding instruments are governed by Article 17.

Guidance notes and model policies

Short dated documents a school may adopt, adapt or reject, each stating the evidence it rests on, the conditions under which it stops applying, and the date by which it is to be reviewed or withdrawn.

Readiness frameworks

Structured self-assessments completed by the school, held by the school and reported to no one. The Council collects no completed sheet, no score and no summary of one, holds no ranking and issues no result, and no Council study is designed around the collection of a completed self-assessment.

Convening

Meetings, working groups and consultations among principals, correspondents, trustees, teachers, researchers and, where appropriate and with consent, students and parents.

Commissioned research

Studies designed, reviewed and published under Article 11, including replication of existing claims and studies whose result is that no effect was found.

Public register

A public register of members, their declared interests, every funder and every output published. The part recording interests and commercial relationships is held by the Reviewer of Concerns under Article 10, and not by the Secretariat.

Consultation responses

Written responses to public consultations, published in full on the Council's own record at the same time as they are submitted. Making a response implies no invitation, no standing and no relationship with the body consulted, and shall not be described as though it did.

Capability material

Openly available material for teacher and student AI capability, usable without any platform, licence, login or subscription, and reproducible by a school for its own use.

Annual public record

One document, under that name, published at the end of each term, setting out the decisions taken, the outputs published and the interests declared, and answering as a plain yes or no whether anything said, seen or collected in the Council's proceedings was used by PrepGraph for the sale, marketing or promotion of a product or service, or for product development, roadmap, pricing or competitive analysis. No other instrument sets a different name for this record.

No certification or rating

The Council will not certify, accredit, rate, rank, approve, badge or award any status to a school, curriculum, teacher, product or vendor, under any name and by any scheme.

No procurement advice

The Council will not recommend, shortlist, score, evaluate for purchase or advise on the selection of any product or vendor, publicly or privately, for a fee or for nothing.

No private guidance

The Council gives no advice it does not publish. A question put to it by a school, a ministry or a vendor is answered, if at all, by a published output available to every reader at the same time. A letter is still acknowledged and answered as correspondence under Article 1; what it will not receive is advice given privately. Where a question is of general interest the Council may answer it as a published output, and says so in the reply.

No vendor endorsement

The Council will not endorse any technology vendor. This includes PrepGraph, without exception and irrespective of PrepGraph's role as founder, funder and secretariat.

No paid placement

The Council will not accept payment, in money or in kind, in return for a place on its programmes, a speaking slot, a mention in an output, a seat at a meeting, or the attention of its members.

No sales channel

The Council will not be used as a route to a sale. Contact details of members, attendees, participating schools or their staff are not passed to any commercial team, and no Council activity is used to generate, qualify or warm a sales lead.

No claim of authority

The Council will not claim, imply or permit others to imply government, ministry, board, university or international affiliation, alignment amounting to approval, or any statutory or accrediting function.

No fee to schools

The Council will not charge a school for membership, participation, guidance or access to its published work, and will not operate a paid tier of any kind.

No research without ethics

The Council will not conduct or publish research involving children otherwise than under Article 11, and will not accept a study whose ethics review was obtained after data collection began.

No identification without consent

The Council will not name a child in any circumstance, and will not name a school, teacher or class in a published output without that party's specific written consent, given for that output.

No undisclosed participation

The Council will not conceal who took part. Every participating school, funder and research partner is named in the public register, or the participation does not proceed.

No suppressed finding

The Council will not withhold, delay or soften a finding on account of the commercial interest of any funder, including PrepGraph.

No retaliation

The Council will not remove, exclude, decline to reappoint, or omit from an output any member, Fellow, Observer, author or participant on account of a breach report made in good faith, a recorded dissent, or a published dissenting note. Retaliation is itself a ground for removal under Article 7.

Founding Chair

Presides over meetings, settles the agenda, and speaks for the Council. Holds one vote, and a casting vote only where a vote is tied.

The Chair is not an executive of the Council, does not direct the Secretariat's employer, cannot approve an output alone, and cannot appoint after the first cohort without the Council's assent.

Founding Members

The deliberating body. They set the work programme, approve publication, appoint Expert Fellows and carry the vote. They serve in their own names and on their own judgement.

They are not delegates of their schools or employers, hold no representative mandate, and are not to be described as customers, prospects or references by anyone.

Expert Fellows

Appointed for a defined subject and a defined period to contribute expertise, draft or review material and lead working groups. They attend and speak at meetings.

They do not vote, do not approve publication, and the appointment confers no standing to speak for the Council.

Observers

Attend meetings by invitation and with notice, to follow the work and offer information.

They do not vote, do not draft, and attendance is not a partnership, an association or an endorsement in either direction.

Secretariat

Provided and paid for by PrepGraph. The Council determines the recommendations and principles. The PrepGraph-supported Secretariat enables research, coordination, publication and implementation. The Secretariat holds no vote. It convenes meetings, circulates papers, keeps the record of outputs, maintains records, and publishes what the Council has approved. It does not hold the register of interests, which is held and published by the Reviewer of Concerns under Article 10. Its offices are held by named persons, and the commercial role each holds at PrepGraph is published beside the Council title, in the same sentence and never separately. The three offices are set out below.

Holds no vote on any question, no editorial discretion, and no power to withhold, delay, edit or unpublish an approved output. No officer of the Secretariat counts towards quorum. It may not hold, copy or be told which member's school holds a commercial relationship with PrepGraph or with any competitor of PrepGraph. Secretariat staff withdraw when a breach report concerning PrepGraph is considered.

Founder & Executive Convener

Held by Umesh Sharma, Founder & CEO, PrepGraph. The office holds the founding intent and the research direction: it brings emerging research and technology questions to the Council, including those that are inconvenient for a company selling AI to schools; it presents implementation evidence from schools with its provenance and its limitations stated, for the Council to accept, discount or reject; it funds and organises studies under Article 11 on the terms that Article sets and no others; and it convenes working groups and finds people willing to do the work. He holds no vote, on publication, on standards, on membership, on a vendor question or on anything else, and does not count towards quorum. He cannot approve, amend, delay or withhold a Council publication; that power sits with the Chair and a majority of the voting members under Article 12. He does not sit on the ethics review panel and takes no part in its decisions. He is not present when the Council decides any matter in which PrepGraph has an interest. He may propose an agenda item, which the Chair may decline without giving a reason. He cannot remove the Founding Chair, shorten her term, or appoint her successor.

The Executive Convener may contribute research, evidence and proposals. Council recommendations are determined collectively and are not subject to commercial approval by PrepGraph.

Executive Director & Secretary-General

Held by Rekha Sharma, Chief Operating Officer, PrepGraph. The office runs the Council's administration: it convenes meetings and keeps the record; coordinates members, Expert Fellows and working groups between meetings; carries approved outputs through drafting, member comment, dissent and publication, free and ungated; and keeps Council communications separate from PrepGraph product marketing, in channel, in list and in wording. She holds no vote on any question and does not count towards quorum. She cannot approve a Council document, or issue one the Chair has not approved in writing. She cannot decide who is invited to membership; the Chair invites the first cohort and the Founding Members assent thereafter. She holds no commercial-relationship data about members or participants, that register being held and published by the Reviewer of Concerns under Article 10, and she cannot amend an instrument.

Nothing is published in the Council's name without the Founding Chair's written approval. The Secretariat drafts; it does not decide.

Director, Education Partnerships & National Outreach

Held by Anisha Sarkar, who works on education partnerships at PrepGraph. Because that work is commercial, the limits on this office are stated with its mandate rather than after it. The office builds the Council's external network: it invites school leaders, works with school groups and associations, convenes regional roundtables, represents the Secretariat at school-network and association meetings, coordinates outreach for founding membership and for Expert Fellowships on the Chair's invitation and over the Chair's signature, and sees that a published note follows each convening. She may not raise, invite, accept or continue a commercial conversation about a PrepGraph product, price, pilot or contract inside a Council activity. Where a school raises commercial interest during a Council activity, she says at that moment that the conversation moves to PrepGraph's ordinary business channel. She may not present, demonstrate or describe a PrepGraph product at a Council convening, in any format, including in answer to a direct question; the answer to such a question is the referral. She may not use a Council invitation list, attendee list or contact detail as a prospect list, or pass one to anyone who would. She holds no vote and does not count towards quorum.

A Council roundtable that becomes a product demonstration is a breach of the independence policy.

Working groups

The Council may constitute working groups, each led by an Expert Fellow and constituted by minute, with its remit, its Fellow and its members recorded in the register. Six are contemplated, one to each pillar it chiefly serves: Responsible AI & Governance; Teacher AI Enablement; Student Safety & Wellbeing; School AI Readiness; Academic Innovation; and Policy & Standards.

The Secretariat may service a working group and may not sit on one, lead one or vote in one. The bar on vendor interests in this Article applies to working-group membership in full, and no quota or proportion admits a person that bar excludes.

Secretariat officers hold no office of the Council

No officer of the Secretariat, including the three named in this Article, may hold, be appointed to, or be counted towards any office of the Council. None is a Founding Member, an Expert Fellow, an Observer or the Reviewer of Concerns, and none may become one while holding Secretariat office or while deriving material income from PrepGraph or from any other supplier of AI products to schools. Every quorum, cap, majority and proportion stated in this Charter is calculated on the voting members alone; the Secretariat is excluded from both sides of each such calculation.

Reviewer of Concerns

One person who holds no office in the Council and is not employed by, contracted to, or in receipt of material income from PrepGraph or from any supplier of AI products to schools. The Reviewer holds and publishes the register of interests under Article 10; receives breach reports under Article 5; concurs in the appointment of a Chair under Article 7; tests the nomination and invitation list under Article 7; and samples declarations against the register.

Holds no vote. Appointed for a fixed term of three years and removable only for cause by two thirds of the voting members.

Bar on vendor interests

A person who is an employee, director, shareholder or paid adviser of PrepGraph, or who otherwise derives material income from PrepGraph or from any supplier of AI products to schools, may not hold office as a Founding Member or Expert Fellow, may not vote, may not sit on a working group, and may not draft or review an output. Such a person may be heard as an invited Observer, and nothing more. The bar runs to every supplier and not to PrepGraph alone, and no quota, cap or proportion admits a person the bar excludes.

A supplier of AI products to schools means a person or undertaking that sells, licences or supplies to schools a product or service marketed on its use of artificial intelligence, or a component of such a product. A general-purpose office, communications or infrastructure product that a school happens to use does not make its supplier one, and a shareholding held through a pooled fund the person does not direct is not an interest for this purpose.

Cap on commercially connected members

Not more than one third of the voting members in office may be persons whose school or organisation holds a commercial relationship with PrepGraph, meaning a paid licence, a pilot, a discount or a free deployment held now or at any time in the preceding three years. A prospective relationship, including an open negotiation or a live quotation, does not count towards the third: it bars the appointment for as long as it is open. Each relationship is entered in the register at appointment. An appointment that would exceed the cap does not take effect.

The cap is a continuing obligation, not a test applied once. While it is exceeded, the most recently acquired relationships are suspended from voting until compliance is restored and no output is published. Every voting member refreshes the declaration before a publication vote.

Cap on any one institution

Not more than one fifth of the voting members may be drawn from any one school, group of schools or organisation.

Size of the Council

The Founding Chair and the Founding Members, and no more. The size of the Council is entrenched under Article 15 and may not be raised by the Chair, by the Secretariat or by any subordinate instrument.

Seats and constituencies

The seats are architected, not uniform, so that the Council speaks for schools rather than for any supplier. They are drawn from school leadership; teacher development and pedagogy; responsible AI and technology; child development and age-appropriate use; equity and inclusion; school innovation; education policy and systems; and one is independent or at large. Each appointment states in the register which seat it fills.

Membership is not endorsement

Membership of the Council does not constitute endorsement of PrepGraph or any technology vendor. Members participate in their individual professional capacity to advance responsible, ethical and evidence-informed use of AI and innovation in school education.

This clause is reproduced without alteration wherever membership is described, offered or reported.

Inaugural term

Twelve months from 29 August 2026. Every appointment made during it expires with it.

Ordinary term

An appointment runs to the end of the term in which it is made and expires with it, since this Charter itself expires at the end of a term unless renewed. Where the Charter is renewed under Article 16, an appointment may be renewed with it, for not more than two further terms. Longer service requires a fresh resolution stating the reason, which is published.

Appointment of Expert Fellows

Expert Fellows are appointed by the Founding Members, on the same declarations and subject to the same bar as members, and not by the Chair alone.

Nomination and invitation list

The list of persons to be nominated and invited to membership is built and held by the Chair, from open public nomination at the address of record and from names proposed by professional bodies. It may not be derived, in whole or in part, from PrepGraph's commercial records, including its customer, pilot, trial, enquiry, lead or sales records, and no PrepGraph employee may add a name to it. Every invitation is sent over the Chair's signature. The Reviewer of Concerns tests the list against PrepGraph's commercial records once a year.

No remuneration

No member, Fellow or Observer is paid for service by the Council or by PrepGraph in connection with it. Reasonable travel and subsistence may be reimbursed by the Secretariat.

Resignation

By written notice to council@prepgraph.com, effective on receipt, with no reason required and none to be sought.

Grounds for removal

Concealment of a material interest; breach of Article 5; breach of confidentiality or of child safety obligations; misuse of the Council's name under Article 14; or absence from three consecutive meetings without leave.

Removal procedure

Written notice of the ground, at least fourteen days to respond in writing or in person, and a decision by two thirds of the voting members in office, the person concerned taking no part. The decision and its ground are published.

Removal of the Chair

The Chair may be removed on the same grounds by two thirds of the voting members other than the Chair, the Chair having the same right of notice and reply. The vote is taken without the Chair or the Secretariat present.

Automatic vacation of office

An office is vacated automatically, without a vote and without a hearing, on the death of the holder, on written certification of medical incapacity by a registered medical practitioner, or on a failure to act in the office for ninety consecutive days.

Vacancy in the chair

The voting members elect an acting Chair at their next meeting, who serves to the end of the term. PrepGraph takes no part in that election, proposes no candidate and holds no veto.

Renewal and second term of the Chair

The appointment of the Chair for any subsequent term is made by the voting members who served the preceding term, from nominations. PrepGraph holds no vote, no veto and no power to decline a renewal, and no other instrument may give it one. The Chair's continuation in office is not conditional on the funder's satisfaction with any output.

Lapse

An appointment not renewed lapses. There is no continuation by default and no honorary continuation of a lapsed office.

Record of departure

Every resignation, removal and lapse is recorded in the public register, and the ground is published in the case of removal.

What PrepGraph pays for

Secretariat staff time, meeting and convening costs, hosting and publication of outputs, the public register, and reimbursement of members' reasonable travel. It pays no member, Fellow or Observer for service.

Funding committed in advance

Funding for a full term is committed in writing before the first appointment of that term. It is not released output by output and is not conditional on any output.

What PrepGraph receives

Public acknowledgement as founding organisation, funder, research and knowledge partner and secretariat; the naming of the Council; and the right to be heard on the same terms as any other organisation. It does not receive, and may not act on, what it learns in a Council proceeding about a school's requirements, buying intentions or dissatisfaction.

What else PrepGraph does

PrepGraph's activity has three parts: learning software sold to students, families and schools, from school to first job; an internal research and development function; and this Council. The first two are commercial. This one is not, and the rules in the Charter and the independence policy are what hold the boundary.

No product of PrepGraph is named here or in any Council material, and Article 5 forbids naming one.

Agenda

PrepGraph may propose an agenda item. The Chair may decline without stating a reason.

No vote and no veto

PrepGraph holds no vote, no seat as of right, no observer seat as of right, and no power to block, delay or require any decision of the Council.

The Executive Convener

The Executive Convener may contribute research, evidence and proposals. Council recommendations are determined collectively and are not subject to commercial approval by PrepGraph.

Founder & Executive Convener is an office of the Secretariat under Article 6, held by Umesh Sharma, Founder & CEO, PrepGraph. It is not a seat on the Council. It carries no vote on publication, on standards, on membership or on a vendor question, and does not count towards quorum.

The Convener's withdrawal

The Executive Convener is not present when the Council decides any matter in which PrepGraph has an interest. He withdraws before the discussion of that matter begins, takes no part in it, and receives no paper prepared for it.

No editorial review

PrepGraph has no editorial review. It may correct factual statements about its own systems, within ten working days of receiving a draft, and silence publishes. It cannot delay, amend or withhold anything.

PrepGraph has no right of any kind over a statement that is not about its own systems, and no right to require an output to be altered or removed after publication.

No commercial use

No proceeding, attendee list, participant contact detail, school relationship or draft output may be used for the sale, marketing or promotion of any PrepGraph product or service, in any tender or procurement response, or for product development, roadmap, pricing or competitive analysis.

Research participation

PrepGraph may act as a research partner and may contribute anonymised data or platform access. Its participation is disclosed at the head of the study and in every summary, and the study is subject to Article 11 in full, including the restriction on studies of PrepGraph's own products.

Bare trusteeship

PrepGraph contracts, holds copyright and acts as data fiduciary for the Council as bare trustee, on the terms of this Charter. Research agreements, partner agreements and processor contracts are signed by PrepGraph on terms the Council settles and publishes, and PrepGraph is bound by them. The Council itself signs nothing. Where any instrument says that the Council signs, holds or receives, it is read as the Secretariat signing, holding or receiving as bare trustee on the Council's terms.

Deed of trust

The trusteeship is recorded in a deed signed by PrepGraph and the Chair. The deed adds nothing to this Charter and may not derogate from it, and a term of the deed inconsistent with this Charter is void.

Continuity and research data

Any acquirer of PrepGraph must reaffirm the deed in writing, without amendment, and the Council's name may not be transferred separately from it. Council research data and the participant register are not assets of PrepGraph and are never sold: on any change of ownership or winding up they are deleted or returned in accordance with the consents under which they were collected, and published outputs remain available in the public archive named under Article 1.

Copyright and licensing

Copyright in Council outputs is held by PrepGraph as bare trustee for the Council and licensed to the public under Article 14. PrepGraph exercises no right of a copyright owner over an output except as the Council directs, and may not assert copyright to prevent the reproduction, quotation or criticism of anything the Council has published.

Indemnity, insurance and publisher of record

PrepGraph indemnifies the Chair, the members, the Fellows, the ethics review panel, the Reviewer of Concerns and named authors and reviewers against claims arising from work done in good faith for the Council, and maintains professional indemnity and media liability cover naming them. The indemnity and the cover survive the end of the term and the dissolution of the Council. PrepGraph is the publisher of record of every Council output.

The Charter positively invites findings adverse to a funder and to vendors. Individuals should not carry that risk personally because the body they serve has no legal shell.

Notice of funding changes

Any change to the Council's funding requires ninety days' written notice to the Chair, and no other instrument may state a shorter or a different period. The notice is published.

Consequence of a convener breach

A breach of this Article or of Article 14 by PrepGraph is published with the finding and the remedy.

Other funders

Additional funding may be accepted only on the same terms, with no editorial condition of any kind, and is received by PrepGraph as bare trustee. No supplier of AI products to schools other than PrepGraph may fund the Council or any Council activity, directly or through a foundation or association it controls. Every source of funding is published in the register.

No vendor vote

No person holding a material interest in a supplier of AI products to schools may vote in the Council. This includes an interest in PrepGraph.

No paid placement

No sponsorship, fee or contribution buys a session, a speaker, a mention, a case study or an audience. There is no rate card and no arrangement equivalent to one.

No product demonstrations

Product demonstrations and sales presentations, by any vendor including PrepGraph, are excluded from Council proceedings and from any event held in the Council's name.

No comparison or shortlist

The Council publishes no comparison table, buyer's guide, approved list, directory or shortlist of products or suppliers, however framed and however described.

Adverse findings protected

The Council may publish findings adverse to PrepGraph or to any funder, and shall not moderate the language of such a finding on account of the funding relationship. Any request to do so is published as a request.

Funding stated on the face of each output

Every output carries, on its first page, its funder, the names of its authors and reviewers, and their declared interests.

Reviewer with no interest

Every output is checked before publication by at least one named person with no interest in it, in any funder of it, or in its result, and that person's name and declaration are published with it.

Test of an output, made checkable

Every output lists what a school needs in order to act on it: staff time, skills, money and consents. If any item on that list is a named product, the output is not published.

No exclusive access

Outputs are published to all readers at the same time and at the public address of record. No funder, member or partner receives an embargoed copy or a briefing for commercial advantage, and no reader sees a finding before any other reader.

Under Article 8 PrepGraph may correct factual statements about its own systems before publication; it gains no other access.

Same right for anyone criticised

Where an output names a third party adversely, including a vendor other than PrepGraph, a school or an individual, that party receives the same opportunity to correct factual statements on the same terms and in the same ten working days. The convener holds no procedural right that a criticised outsider does not.

On receipt of a legal notice

An output is never removed quietly. On a legal notice the Council takes legal advice and decides openly, and any change it makes is marked on the output.

The Council's own use of AI

The Council asks schools to disclose what AI they use and for what. It discloses the same. Every output states whether an AI system was used in drafting, analysis or the handling of participant data, which system, for what part of the work, and who checked the result. Participant data is not put into a system that retains it for training.

Standing declaration

Made in writing on appointment, before any participation in the Council's business, and entered in the public register before the person first sits.

Meeting declarations

Invited by the Chair at the start of every meeting, whether or not already in the register.

Recusal

A person with a material interest in an item withdraws from the discussion and the decision on it.

Disclosure in outputs

Every output names its authors and reviewers, their interests, its funder and any participation by PrepGraph, on the first page and in every summary of it.

Meaning of a material interest

An interest is material where a reasonable reader would think it capable of affecting the person's judgement on the business in hand. It is material in every case where the person, a member of their household, or their school or organisation holds a paid engagement, a shareholding other than through a pooled fund they do not direct, or a commercial relationship with the party concerned worth more than fifty thousand rupees in a year, or held one within the preceding three years.

Doubtful cases

Where it is unclear whether an interest is material, it is declared. The presumption is always in favour of disclosure.

Concealment

Failure to declare a material interest is a breach of this Charter, dealt with under Article 7, and the fact of the finding is published.

Ethics review first

Independent ethics review is obtained, and its terms and reviewing body recorded in the study, before any data collection begins. Retrospective approval is not accepted in any circumstances.

Consent and assent

Informed consent from the school and from the parent or guardian, and age-appropriate assent from the child, with a plain statement of what is collected, why, for how long, by whom it is held and how it is deleted.

Data minimisation and custody

Only data necessary to the stated question is collected and it is held for the shortest period that answers it, in accordance with applicable law including the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Study data is not held on a vendor's systems, including PrepGraph's, unless the consent said so and the study states it. Where PrepGraph holds study data at all it holds it as bare trustee under Article 8, as the data fiduciary named in the consent for that study, bound by the protocol as its processing instructions, and it may not use that data for any purpose of its own.

Pre-registration

The question, method, outcome measures and analysis plan are recorded publicly before data collection wherever the design permits, at the public address of record or a recognised registry. Every departure from the plan is reported in the study.

No sponsor study of the sponsor's product

The Council will not publish an evaluation of a PrepGraph product funded by PrepGraph: an evaluation of PrepGraph's products requires an independent funder. Where the intervention studied is the convener's product, the study is an evaluation of that product whatever it is titled. Every protocol names which product delivered the intervention, and a study run on PrepGraph's platform under a grant of platform access is an evaluation of that platform and is not published as a general finding about AI in Indian classrooms.

The ethics review panel

Not fewer than five members, none of whom is employed by, contracted to, or in receipt of material income from PrepGraph or from any supplier of AI products to schools. Members are appointed by the Chair from nominations, each appointment concurred in by the Reviewer of Concerns and published with the appointee's declared interests. Terms are fixed and staggered. Removal is for cause only, by two thirds of the voting members. Where the panel loses quorum, a study is suspended and is not deemed cleared. A refusal may be appealed once, in writing, to the panel.

The panel's veto

The panel may refuse clearance, may halt a study it has cleared at any point without the agreement of the Council, the Chair or PrepGraph, and may veto the publication of a study. It holds no share in approving publication, which is governed by Article 12 in every case. A veto, and the reason for it, is published.

Reviewer independent of the sponsor

Where PrepGraph or any vendor has participated in a study, at least one reviewer must have had no employment, consultancy, funding or commercial relationship with that vendor in the preceding three years, and must be named.

Sponsor evidence is not Council evidence

Product evidence generated by PrepGraph or any vendor is not a finding of the Council and shall never be presented as one, by the Council or by the vendor.

Participation disclosed

Where a vendor has contributed funding, data, platform access, staff or subjects, that participation is stated at the head of the study and repeated in every summary, slide and press description of it.

Negative results published

Findings that are negative, null or contrary to a funder's expectation are published in the same form, at the same length and with the same prominence as any other, and within the same period from completion.

Claims match design

Causal language is used only where the design supports it. Sample size, comparison group, attrition, effect size, confidence interval and limitations appear in the body of the work, not only in an appendix.

Instruments published

Questionnaires, prompts, rubrics, scoring guides and analysis code are published with the study so that a reader may check or repeat it.

Withdrawal

A participating school, teacher, parent or student may withdraw at any time without giving a reason. Data already collected from them is deleted on request and the deletion is confirmed in writing. Withdrawal can only reach data that can still be identified as theirs; the consent form states, in plain words, the date after which the linking key has been destroyed and withdrawal can no longer reach the de-identified set, so that no parent is given a right that expires in silence.

Correction and retraction

An error material to a conclusion is corrected publicly, and the correction is carried wherever the finding was reported.

Consensus first

The Chair seeks a position every voting member can accept, and records where that was not possible and why.

Vote where consensus fails

A simple majority of voting members present, taken openly, with the numbers for, against and abstaining recorded.

Publication approval

The Chair and a majority of the voting members. The funder has no part in it. The Secretariat has no discretion in it. For a study, clearance by the ethics review panel under Article 11 is a further condition, and the panel may veto publication; it holds no share in approving it.

This is the whole of the rule. No other instrument may state a different one, and no instrument gives the Chair approval alone. Where one appears to, this Article governs and the other is void to that extent.

Written resolutions

Permitted only for a matter already on an agenda, requiring the same majority in writing, circulated to every voting member. No new question is decided by circulation.

Recorded dissent

Any member may require their disagreement, and its reason, to be entered in the minutes.

Published dissent

A dissenting note of up to three hundred words is published with the output it concerns, at the same time and in the same place, and is not omitted from any summary of that output.

Abstention

An abstention is recorded as an abstention. Silence is not assent and shall not be minuted as agreement.

Who speaks

The Chair, or a person authorised by the Council for a stated purpose and period. No other person speaks for the Council.

Personal capacity

A member writing or speaking on their own account states that they do so in a personal capacity and not for the Council, and does not use the office to lend weight to the view.

Between meetings

The Chair may restate a position the Council has already adopted, and may not adopt a new one between meetings.

Confidentiality of school data

Information identifying a school, teacher, class or child is not minuted in identifiable form. Such material is referred to by reference and held separately under Article 11.

Minuting on request

A member may require a matter, a question or an objection to be entered in the minutes, and the Secretariat may not decline to enter it.

Retention and custody

Minutes, papers, declarations and approved outputs are retained for not less than seven years. A complete copy is held by the Chair independently of the Secretariat, so that the record does not depend on the funder's systems. A request to delete personal data reaches contact details, not these records; the distinction is stated in every instrument that offers deletion.

Hold on destruction

Where a complaint, a breach report, a legal notice or a dispute is live, no record within its scope is destroyed, whatever the retention period says, until the matter is closed.

Attendance undertaking

Every Observer and every guest undertakes in writing, before attending, not to repeat outside the room anything identifying a school, teacher, class or child, and not to describe attendance as a partnership, an association or an endorsement.

Annual public record

As required by Article 4. It is one document, published once a term, under that name. There is no separate closing account, transparency statement or status page, and any instrument promising one is promising this.

Permitted for members

A factual statement of office and period, in this form: Expert Fellow, PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation, 2026-27.

Prohibited for members

Use of the office to endorse, promote or lend weight to any product, service, institution or commercial proposition, or in any advertisement, prospectus or tender.

Permitted for PrepGraph

One factual statement, in this form: PrepGraph convenes, funds and provides the secretariat of the PrepGraph Council for Responsible AI & School Innovation. It may be used in corporate material and nowhere else.

Prohibited for PrepGraph

Any use of the Council's name in product marketing, pricing pages, brochures, sales conversations, pitches, tenders or procurement responses, or in any way suggesting that Council work supports the purchase of a PrepGraph product.

Prohibited for vendors

Any use of the Council's name, marks or outputs in vendor material, including the phrases Council-approved, Council-certified, Council-recommended, Council partner, aligned to the Council or endorsed by the Council. No such status exists and none can be conferred.

Permitted for schools

A factual statement of participation in a named Council programme or study, in the period concerned, with no claim of accreditation, rating, approval or preference.

No lock-ups

The Council's name or mark shall not be placed alongside a vendor's logo, brand or product name in any composition, including on a slide, a banner or a stand.

On leaving office

Permission to use the name ends with the office. Past service may be stated in the past tense with the years, and no more.

Derived works

Council outputs are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Schools, researchers, journalists and critics may copy, translate, adapt and teach from them without permission and without asking for it.

The restraints on distorting an output and on using it to promote a product are not conditions of that licence, which cannot carry them. They are rules about the Council's name and marks, stated in this Article, and they bind a vendor whatever the content licence allows.

Who may propose

The Chair, or any three voting members acting together, by notice to council@prepgraph.com.

Notice

Twenty-one days, with the existing and proposed text set side by side and the reason stated in writing.

Ordinary majority

Two thirds of the voting members in office, voting openly, with the numbers recorded and published.

Entrenched Articles

Article 5; the caps, the seat architecture, the size of the Council and the office of the Reviewer of Concerns in Article 6; Article 8; Article 9; Article 11; Article 14; Article 17; and this Article may be amended only by three quarters of the voting members in office.

Direction of change

An entrenched Article may not be amended so as to weaken a restraint on the convener, a funder or a vendor. It may be amended only to strengthen a restraint or to close a gap, and the resolution must state which. Whether a proposed amendment weakens a restraint is determined by the Reviewer of Concerns, in writing, published with the proposal before the vote is taken.

Subordinate instruments

No instrument of the Council may declare itself to govern over this Charter, and none may be amended so as to conflict with it. Where a subordinate instrument restates or applies an entrenched Article, it may be amended only by the majority that Article requires. An amendment made by any other route is void, and the Charter's text applies in its place.

No amendment by the convener

PrepGraph may not propose, vote on or veto an amendment. It may submit a written view, which is circulated with the proposal, identified as its own and published with the outcome.

Cooling period

No entrenched Article may be amended within ninety days of a published finding adverse to the convener or to a funder, so that a restraint cannot be removed in response to its first use.

Publication

An amendment takes effect on publication of the amended Charter, and not on the date of the resolution.

Version record

Every version is dated and retained. A reader must be able to establish what this Charter said on any past date.

Sunset

The Charter expires at the end of the term. Renewal requires an express resolution of two thirds of the voting members, taken before expiry and published with its reasons.

Review criteria

Outputs published, and the use schools made of them; the proportion of voting members holding a commercial relationship with PrepGraph; and whether every restraint in Articles 5, 8, 9 and 14 was kept.

Evidence that schools used the work

The review states the number of documented instances in which a school reported adopting, adapting or rejecting a Council output, and the method by which that count was obtained.

Grounds to wind up

An unremedied breach of Article 8, 9 or 11, or a conclusion that the function is better served by another body.

Winding up

A resolution of two thirds of the voting members, stating the reason, published within thirty days, with notice to every participating school, member, Fellow and Observer.

Outputs remain

Published outputs remain publicly available for not less than three years after dissolution, marked with the date the Council ceased, and are not revised thereafter. They are held at the address of record for as long as it exists and, in every case, in the public archive named under Article 1.

Residual liabilities

PrepGraph's indemnity and insurance under Article 8 survive dissolution and answer an outstanding research obligation, an unpaid reimbursement or a claim on a published finding, so that a liability of the Council does not fall on the individuals who served it.

Data on dissolution

Personal data held for research is deleted or returned in accordance with the consents under which it was collected. No such data passes to PrepGraph or to any successor for commercial use, and the deletion is certified in the closing record.

Name after dissolution

Use of the Council's name ceases on dissolution. It shall not be revived by PrepGraph or any other party except by the adoption of a new charter, published, on its own merits.

Closing record

A final record is published stating what the Council did and what it concluded.

The founding instruments

This Charter; the Independence and Governance Policy; the Membership Terms; the Office of the Founding Chair; the Responsible AI Principles for Indian Schools; the School AI Readiness Framework; the Research Agenda and Research Ethics; the Inaugural Term Programme; the positioning paper; the questions and answers; and the announcement kit. Nothing else.

What a founding instrument is not

It is not a finding of the Council. No part of it may be quoted as a finding, and no part of it may be cited by anyone as approval of a product, a school or a practice.

Who drafted them

The secretariat, which is staffed and paid for by PrepGraph, with the Founding Chair, who issued them. Each instrument says so on its face.