With his Nobel Prize award money, Amartya Sen set up the Pratichi Trust which carries out research, advocacy and experimental projects in basic education, primary health care, and women's development in West Bengal and Bangladesh. Professor Sen himself took active interest in this work--helping set the agenda, looking at the evidence from research, and engaging in advocacy. The present article is based on Sen's introduction to a Pratichi study of primary education in West Bengal, released in December 2009, which compares the results of surveys conducted at an interval of almost a decade. Sen's significant findings and insightful observations and recommendations have relevance much beyond West Bengal.