Founding membership

Founding Members

The voting members of the Council, together with the Founding Chair, for the inaugural term.

The seats

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 an independent seat at large.

Every appointment is published against the seat it fills, so a reader can see for themselves that the constituencies are honoured.

Expert Fellows

Specialists appointed by the Founding Members for the inaugural term. Expert Fellows hold no vote.

Fellows need not hold a school role. Each appointment is published on the day it takes effect, together with the interests declared with it.

Observers

No standing places, and no vote. Invited to one named convening for a stated reason.

Not counted in the cap, not listed as members, not quoted as Council participants. An Observer signs a short written undertaking on confidentiality and child-related information before the session.

Institutional Partners

Not a class of membership. A body enters a written agreement for one named activity, signed by PrepGraph as secretariat on the Council's published terms, and holds no seat and no vote.

No supplier of AI products to schools may be an Institutional Partner or fund any Council activity. A partner that later sought a seat would have to be nominated and assessed against the criteria like anyone else.

Composition aims

A majority of Founding Members from outside Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad; state-board and aided schools alongside private CBSE and ICSE schools; and members whose schools have examined AI tools and decided against them.

Aims worked towards in filling the seats, not quotas.

Founding Chair

Ms. Sri Lakshmi chairs convenings, settles the agenda with the Secretariat, appoints the first cohort of Founding Members, and holds one vote and a casting vote. She does not approve a publication alone: that requires her approval and a majority of the voting members. She takes no fee, honorarium or expense from the Council beyond travel it asks her to make; she endorses no supplier; and she declares any interest in any supplier of AI products to schools, including PrepGraph.

PrepGraph cannot remove her, and she cannot be removed for an unwelcome finding. Removal is by two thirds of the voting members other than the Chair, on stated grounds.

Founding Members

Carry the vote. They set the work programme, approve publication together with the Chair, appoint Expert Fellows, and assent to every member appointment after the first cohort. They may propose agenda items, question any paper, require a dissenting note of up to three hundred words to be published alongside any Council output, unedited except for length and law, and use the permitted form of words. They may not speak for the Council without the Chair's agreement, and may not use membership to endorse, recommend or disparage a product.

Expert Fellows

Specialists in AI ethics, child safety, data protection, assessment, teacher education, special education and education research, appointed by the Founding Members. They hold no vote. They may review protocols and drafts, lead a working group, sit on the nominations panel when asked, and dissent publicly. They may not review their own work, a protocol from an organisation that employs them, or material concerning a supplier that pays them.

A Fellow who resigns may state a reason, and the reason is published as given.

Observers

May attend one named session and speak when invited. Hold no vote. May not be listed as members, quoted as Council participants, or described as having contributed to a Council position. Staff of any supplier of AI products to schools may be heard in this capacity and in no other.

The Council does not invite serving officials in order to borrow standing, and describes no attendance as representing any government, board or authority.

Institutional Partners

Bodies such as school associations, universities and foundations, other than any supplier of AI products to schools, that host a convening or contribute research capability under a written agreement for a named activity. May be named as the partner for that activity. Hold no vote. May not nominate members, sit on the nominations panel, receive member contact details, review material bearing on their own products, or publish their own material under the Council's name.

The Secretariat

PrepGraph, as founding organisation, research and knowledge partner and secretariat, prepares papers, keeps the record of business, maintains correspondence and publishes what the Chair and a majority of the voting members approve. It works through the three named offices set out below. It does not decide admissions, does not chair, holds no vote, does not count towards quorum, and does not receive or hold declarations of interest, which go to the Reviewer of Concerns. Material it drafts is marked as secretariat-drafted wherever it is published.

PrepGraph staff working in sales, marketing or business development hold no secretariat role and take no part in Council administration. None of the three officers below is a member of the Council, and none may be appointed to a voting seat while holding the office.

Founder & Executive Convener (Secretariat)

Umesh Sharma, Founder & CEO, PrepGraph. He holds the founding intent and the research direction: he may bring emerging research and technology questions to the Council, including the ones that are inconvenient for a company selling AI to schools, identify where schools are working without guidance, present implementation evidence with its provenance and its limitations stated, fund and organise studies on the terms the Research Agenda sets and no others, convene working groups, and translate what the Council publishes into tools a school can use, at PrepGraph's cost and without the Council's endorsement of any such tool. He holds no vote, does not count towards quorum, cannot approve, amend, delay or withhold a Council publication, does not sit on the ethics review panel, cannot remove the Founding Chair or shorten her term, and is not present when the Council decides any matter in which PrepGraph has an interest.

The rule is quoted rather than paraphrased: "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 (Secretariat)

Rekha Sharma, Chief Operating Officer, PrepGraph. She runs the Council's administration: convening meetings, circulating papers in advance, keeping a record that shows disagreement as well as agreement, coordinating members, Fellows and working groups, carrying outputs through drafting, member comment, dissent, approval and publication, and keeping 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, cannot decide who is invited to membership, holds no commercial-relationship data about members or participants, and cannot amend an instrument.

The Secretariat drafts; it does not decide.

Director, Education Partnerships & National Outreach (Secretariat)

Anisha Sarkar, who works on education partnerships at PrepGraph. She builds the Council's external network: inviting school leaders, working with school groups and associations, convening regional roundtables, representing the Secretariat at association meetings, and coordinating outreach for founding membership and for Expert Fellowships on the Chair's invitation and over the Chair's signature. She holds no vote and does not count towards quorum. Because her PrepGraph work is commercial, the limit on her office is stated with its mandate: inside a Council activity she may not raise, invite, accept or continue a commercial conversation about a PrepGraph product, price, pilot or contract, and may not present, demonstrate or describe a PrepGraph product at a Council convening in any format, including in answer to a direct question.

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.

A real decision to describe

The nominee has decided something about AI in their school, whether to adopt, defer or refuse, and will describe it candidly, including what did not work.

Something to contribute this term

A policy draft, a set of classroom observations, a training session, a review of a Council paper, or a school willing to host a study under a separate agreement. The contribution is named in the nomination, not decided later.

Willingness to disagree on the record

A member who will not say in public what they said in the room adds nothing this instrument is built to carry.

Time that actually exists

Fourteen to sixteen hours across the year, at dates published at the start of the term. A nominee who cannot give this is better nominated in a later term than admitted and absent.

A current role in the constituency of the seat

A nominee for a school leadership seat holds a current role in a school or school trust; correspondents, trustees and academic heads qualify. A nominee for any other seat holds a current, demonstrable role in the field that seat names.

A person who is an employee, director, shareholder or paid adviser of any supplier of AI products to schools, or who otherwise derives material income from one, may not hold a seat or a Fellowship and may not vote. The bar is not limited to PrepGraph. Such a person may be heard as an invited Observer and in no other capacity.

For Expert Fellows

Demonstrable work in the domain, published or practical. Early-career specialists are eligible. Seniority is a criterion in neither direction.

Four convenings

Four convenings in the term, one hundred and twenty minutes each, held online unless the Council convenes in person.

Attendance floor

Members attend at least two of the four convenings. A member who misses a convening sends a written note on the papers within seven days.

Apologies sent in advance are recorded as apologies.

Preparation

About thirty minutes of reading before each convening. Members are expected to have read the paper before the room opens.

One piece of work

One contribution, chosen by the member in the first quarter and delivered before the fourth convening. Four to six hours of work.

Publication by the Council is non-exclusive. A member keeps the right to publish their own contribution elsewhere, before or after the Council does.

Total load

Eight hours in convenings, two hours of reading, four to six hours on one contribution: fourteen to sixteen hours across twelve months.

An attribution choice

Each member records one of three settings: named and quotable; named, with each quotation approved before use; or participating without public listing. The middle setting is the default. The setting may be changed at any time, including after a convening, and a quotation may be withdrawn before publication. A request to remove a quotation after publication is met in the online version within fourteen days.

Declarations

A written declaration of interests, filed with the Reviewer of Concerns before the member first sits and published on the day the appointment takes effect. An appointment that is not so published is not effective. Updated within fourteen days of any change.

The declaration is not filed with the Secretariat and is not held by PrepGraph.

Confidentiality

Discussion in a convening is attributable to the Council only once published. Personal information about children, families or staff does not leave the room in any form.

A working room of peers

Convenings with school leaders and specialists facing the same decisions, under a rule of candour.

The work of reading drafts before publication

Members see Council drafts before publication because publication needs their approval. It is a duty, not a privilege: a member receives no published output, rating or advantage a non-member cannot have. A member who disagrees may require a dissenting note of up to three hundred words to be published alongside the output, unedited except for length and law.

The Council's published work

Guidance notes, protocols and study findings as they are published, free to any school regardless of membership.

A record of contribution

A letter from the Founding Chair at the end of the term stating attendance and contribution as recorded. It is a record, not a certificate, and it certifies nothing about the member or the member's school.

A permitted form of words

The right to state Founding Membership in a personal biography, in the exact form set out in the section on what founding membership is not, and nowhere else.

Reimbursement, where the Council asks for travel

Where the Council asks a member to travel to a convening it holds, reasonable travel costs are reimbursed against receipts.

There is no honorarium, sitting fee or stipend of any kind, for members, Fellows or the Chair.

No commercial benefit

No discount, no preferential pricing, no pilot priority, no early access and no favourable term from PrepGraph or from any partner, during the term or after it.

Not available at any price

A Founding Member place; an Expert Fellow appointment; a mention in a Council publication; a favourable finding; use of the Council's name in a marketing claim; a copy of the member list.

No paid tiers

No gold, silver or partner tiers, no paid advisory board, no sponsored seats, no paid speaking slots at a convening.

Funding is disclosed

Every source of funding is named in the output it supported and in the annual public record.

Who may not hold office

A person who is an employee, director, shareholder or paid adviser of any supplier of AI products to schools, or who otherwise derives material income from one, may not hold office as a Founding Member or Expert Fellow and may not vote. The bar covers every such supplier, not PrepGraph alone. Staff of such a supplier may be heard as invited Observers, hold no office, sit on no working group and take no part in any decision.

Written declaration

Every member, Fellow and the Chair declares in writing, before first sitting, whether the person or their school or organisation holds a commercial relationship with a supplier of AI products to schools. The answer is yes or no. Where the supplier is PrepGraph it is named and the relationship described. Where it is any other supplier the supplier is not named. Paid advisory roles, shareholdings and family interests a reasonable person would want to know about are declared in the same form.

There is no field for an ongoing negotiation. A yes or no answers every conflicts question that field would answer, and the field itself would build a record of which schools are mid-purchase from whom.

The PrepGraph rule

A member whose school is evaluating, piloting, procuring or already using PrepGraph declares it in writing within fourteen days, the declaration is entered in the register the Reviewer of Concerns holds, and the member recuses from any Council work touching that decision, including drafting, reviewing and commenting on material bearing on the choice.

Recusal is recorded

A member with an interest in an item withdraws from it, and the withdrawal is recorded. A recusal is a control working.

The rule running the other way

PrepGraph's commercial staff do not approach a member about a purchase on the basis of membership. A member approached in terms that trade on the Council reports it to the Founding Chair, who may require the approach to stop.

Fellows do not review themselves

An Expert Fellow does not review a study they authored, a protocol from an organisation that employs them, or material concerning a supplier that pays them. Each review is attributed by name so that this can be checked against the register.

No advantage either way

A declared relationship neither advantages nor disadvantages a member's school in anything the Council does. The Council has nothing to award in any case.

A separate agreement per study

Purpose, data, duration, who holds the data, who may see it, when it is deleted, and what is published. Signed by the school, never implied by membership.

No data access through membership

Membership gives the Council no access to student records, platform data or school systems, and gives a member no access to any other school's data.

Children

Verifiable parental consent and age-appropriate assent are obtained before any study involving children. No processing beyond the stated purpose. No profiling of individual children for any purpose outside the study.

Section 19 of the POCSO Act 2012 places a personal legal duty on every researcher and office-holder who apprehends a sexual offence against a child to report it to the Special Juvenile Police Unit or the local police. No Council undertaking, consent form or agreement qualifies that duty, and nothing in this instrument is to be read as requiring a concern to be routed to the school and no further.

The readiness self-assessment is never collected

A school's completed School AI Readiness self-assessment is never collected, requested or accepted by the Council, the Secretariat or PrepGraph, and no study, baseline or count is built on it. Where the Council needs baseline data it uses a separate instrument, consented to for that purpose, which is not the self-assessment sheet.

The sheet is answered candidly because it stays in the building.

Protocols are registered before fieldwork

Every protocol is entered in a public register, with its question, method and planned analysis, before data collection begins. A finding from an unregistered protocol is not published as a Council finding.

This is what makes the undertaking below on negative results checkable: a registered study that is never published is visible as a gap.

Independent ethics review

Every protocol is cleared before fieldwork by the Council's ethics review panel, whose members are named in the study and hold no interest in the outcome and no relationship with any supplier involved. The panel may refuse clearance, may halt a study it has cleared, and holds a veto over publication of a study. It does not share in the approval of publication, which is the Chair and a majority of the voting members.

Withdrawal

A school or a participant may withdraw at any point, without giving reasons, without cost, and with no effect on membership.

PrepGraph participation is disclosed prominently

Where PrepGraph contributes data, platform access, staff time or funding to a study, that participation is stated prominently in the study and in every summary of it, and the study is not presented as an independent finding of the Council.

Negative results are published

Null and negative findings are published on the same terms as positive ones, including findings unhelpful to the convener.

Named schools consent to being named

No school is identified in any publication without its written agreement, given for that publication.

1. Anyone may nominate

Self-nomination is permitted and carries no disadvantage. A nominee is told they have been nominated before assessment begins, and may withdraw.

2. What the nomination says

Name, role, institution and board; the seat nominated for; one paragraph on what the person would contribute during the term; one example of work already done; a yes or no on whether the person or their school holds a commercial relationship with a supplier of AI products to schools, naming the supplier only where it is PrepGraph; and the attribution preference.

The nomination does not ask which competitor a school uses, or whether it is in negotiation with one. Neither answer serves a conflicts purpose the yes or no does not, and both would build a record the convener has no business holding.

3. Secretariat check

The Secretariat checks the nomination for completeness and records the declared interests. It does not score, rank or filter on merit. An incomplete nomination is returned stating what is missing.

4. Assessment

The Founding Chair assesses the first cohort against the published criteria. Thereafter a nominations panel of two Founding Members and one Expert Fellow, chosen by the Founding Members, recommends to them. No PrepGraph commercial staff member sits on the panel, sees its papers or attends its deliberations.

5. Decision recorded

Each decision is recorded with a one-line reason and kept for the term. Where a nomination is declined for an unmanageable conflict rather than a lack of fit, the letter says so.

6. Reply to everyone

Every nomination receives a reply within thirty days, successful or not.

7. Invitation

Every invitation is sent over the Founding Chair's signature and states the term, the seat, the commitment in hours, the declaration required and the attribution choice. It carries no obligation to accept. No invitation is sent by PrepGraph's commercial staff, under a commercial signature, or as part of any marketing sequence.

Every invitation sent is recorded with its date and the source of the nomination, and the Reviewer of Concerns tests each year that none came from a commercial record.

8. Acceptance and record

Acceptance is in writing. Membership begins on acceptance, runs to the close of the inaugural term, and lapses then unless renewed. The appointment is published on the day it takes effect, with the seat filled and the interests declared; an appointment that is not so published is not effective.

Resignation

Written notice to the Secretariat, effective on receipt. No reason required, no notice period, no consequence. The member's name is removed from Council material within fourteen days of the request.

Change of role

A Founding Member who ceases to hold the role that qualified them for their seat remains a member to the close of the term. The voting members may invite them to continue as an Expert Fellow or Observer where the contribution does not depend on that role.

Grounds for being asked to step down

Missing three of the four convenings without leave; a false or withheld declaration of interest; using membership to imply Council endorsement of a product, school or person; claiming certification, approval or accreditation by the Council; breach of the confidentiality or child-safety obligations.

Process

Written notice from the Founding Chair setting out the ground; fourteen days for the member to reply in writing; a decision by two thirds of the voting members in office, taken without the member present; the reason recorded and published.

A breach of the child-safety obligations suspends participation at once, before the reply period runs. The vote still decides whether the membership ends.

How the departure is recorded

A member asked to step down may request that the record show a resignation, and the request is granted except where the ground was a breach of child-safety obligations.

Lapse of the permitted words

On any ending of membership the right to describe oneself as a Founding Member ceases for the future. A past term may be stated accurately with its dates.

Separation of records

The membership register is a Council record and is not entered into PrepGraph's customer relationship management system. No member record is created, enriched or scored as a commercial lead by reason of membership, and data about a member's school's relationship with any supplier other than PrepGraph is not held by the Secretariat or on any PrepGraph system at all.

The invitation list is not built from the sales system

The nomination and invitation list may not be derived, in whole or in part, from PrepGraph's customer, prospect, pilot, trial or enquiry records. Every invitation sent is recorded with the source of the nomination, and the Reviewer of Concerns tests that record against those commercial systems once a year and publishes the finding as a yes or a no.

Nothing learned in the room reaches the product

Nothing said in a convening, written in a paper, or declared in the register is used by PrepGraph for any commercial purpose, and that includes product development, roadmap, pricing and competitive analysis as well as selling. The annual public record answers it as a yes or no question: was anything learned through the Council used in any of those ways, and if yes, what.

A record request any member can make

Once in each term a member may ask in writing what PrepGraph's commercial systems hold about them and their school, and receives a written answer within thirty days.

Separation of people

PrepGraph staff in sales, marketing or business development hold no Secretariat role, take no part in admissions, and attend a convening only as a named Observer with the Chair's prior agreement.

The two hats of the Director of Education Partnerships

One named officer of the Secretariat, Anisha Sarkar, holds a commercial role at PrepGraph and builds the Council's participation at the same time, and a rule keeps the two apart. Inside a Council activity she may build participation, convene school leaders and represent the Secretariat; she may not raise, invite, accept or continue a commercial conversation about a PrepGraph product, price, pilot or contract, and may not present or demonstrate a PrepGraph product at a Council convening in any format. A school that raises commercial interest during a Council activity is told at that moment that the conversation moves to PrepGraph's ordinary business channel.

Separation of correspondence

council@prepgraph.com is a Council address. Correspondence to it is not routed to PrepGraph's commercial functions, and writing to the Council is not treated as a product enquiry.

No list sharing

The member list is not sold, rented or shared. Institutional Partners receive no member contact details. Members are not mailed for any purpose other than Council business.

No membership-derived outreach

PrepGraph does not contact a member about a purchase on the basis of membership. A commercial relationship that already existed continues on its own footing and is declared in the register.

No endorsement mechanics at all

The Council publishes no vendor lists, shortlists, ratings, tool directories, approved-supplier designations or logo programme. There is nothing here for a supplier to win.

Authorship is marked

Secretariat drafts are marked as such. Any Council material touching a market in which PrepGraph sells is reviewed before publication by two named Expert Fellows.

Right of dissent

Any member may require a dissenting note of up to three hundred words to be published alongside any Council output, unedited except for length and law. Where the Council declines to publish an output at all, a member who contributed to it may publish their own contribution elsewhere after sixty days and say that it was submitted to the Council.

The end-of-term question

At the close of each term the Secretariat asks every member, in writing, whether they were approached commercially because of their membership, and any yes is published.

Not an endorsement of PrepGraph or of any vendor

The Charter states it in these words, and they are quoted here rather than paraphrased: "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."

The clause is in the constitution so that a nominee can rely on it, and so that a member can point to it when someone else uses their name.

Not accreditation or certification

Membership certifies nothing about the member, the school, its teaching, its safeguarding or its use of technology.

Not official recognition

Membership carries no government, ministry, board or examination-body standing, and implies no relationship with any of them.

Not a paid position

It is not an advisory appointment, a directorship, an employment or a consultancy, and carries no fee, equity or honorarium.

Not a procurement route

It produces no discount, priority, pilot place or preferential term with PrepGraph or any other supplier, and gives no supplier any claim on the member.

Not a licence for marketing

The words "recognised by", "approved by", "accredited by", "certified by", "in partnership with" and "powered by" may not be used with the Council's name by any member, school or supplier.

Not a guarantee of publication

A contribution may be published, edited with the member's agreement, or not published. Publication requires the approval of the Chair and a majority of the voting members.

Not permanent

Membership runs for the inaugural term and lapses at its close unless renewed in writing.

Not a mandate to speak

The Council does not speak for its members, and no member speaks for the Council without the Chair's agreement.

Not a commitment by the school

A member's school commits to no spend, no technology, no data sharing and no research by reason of the membership.

The Chair invites

Every invitation is sent over the Founding Chair's signature and states the term, the seat, the commitment in hours, the declaration required and the attribution choice. For the first cohort she assesses against the published criteria and appoints; each decision carries a recorded reason, and each appointment is published on the day it takes effect with the interests declared with it.

An appointment that is not so published is not effective.

The Secretariat carries, and does not choose

The Secretariat may draft, send and record an invitation, and may answer a nominee's questions about what membership involves. It does not select the invitee, score a nomination, rank a list or filter on merit, and it holds no vote on the appointment that follows. "The Council determines the recommendations and principles. The PrepGraph-supported Secretariat enables research, coordination, publication and implementation. The Secretariat holds no vote."

An incomplete nomination is returned stating what is missing. That is the whole of the Secretariat's discretion at this stage.

A suggestion from the funder is recorded as one

The Executive Convener may put a name to the Chair. The suggestion is recorded with its source, and the Chair decides.

The Chair may decline a suggestion without giving a reason.

Not from the sales system, and it is tested

The list may not be built, in whole or in part, from PrepGraph's customer, prospect, pilot, trial or enquiry records. The source of every nomination is recorded, the Reviewer of Concerns tests that record against those commercial systems each year, and the finding is published as a yes or a no.

No Secretariat officer may take a seat

The voting seats are independent seats. None of the three named offices of the Secretariat may occupy one, and a person who is an employee, director, shareholder or paid adviser of PrepGraph or of any other supplier of AI products to schools may not hold a seat or a Fellowship and may not vote.