Dr. Parth J Shah is the Founder of Centre for Civil Society (CCS), a New Delhi-based market-liberal think tank that advances social change through public policy. Its work in education, livelihoods, and policy training promotes choice and accountability across private and public sectors. To translate policy into practice, CCS engages with policy and opinion leaders through research, pilot projects, and advocacy.
Parth's research and advocacy work focuses on the themes of economic freedom, choice, and competition in education, property rights approach to the environment and new public management. He is a member of the education task force of the governments of Delhi and Karnataka and serves on the Senate of the Central University of Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. He holds a Ph.D. in economics and has taught at the University of Michigan and been a visiting faculty at JNU, Delhi and MS University, Vadodara. As the President at the Centre for Civil Society, he has steered the Centre's flagship School Choice Campaign, including India's first school voucher pilot reaching out to 400 students and the National Independent Schools Alliance - an alliance of 55,000 budget private schools across 20 states in India.
He has worked for over two decades on education policy and market-based solutions to improving education delivery in India. He has also published extensively in Indian and international journals and has edited several books. Some of his works include Liberalism in India, Morality of Markets, Law, Liberty, and Livelihood and School Vouchers: Direct Benefit Transfers in Education.
