Teach For India Fellows
The Teach For India Fellowship is probably the most challenging and transformational experience of a Fellow’s life. As teachers in classrooms, Fellows have multiple opportunities to confront and tackle challenges, motivate diverse stakeholders to work hard toward a shared vision, create and adjust plans to move further towards their goals and gain the confidence they need to succeed.
Role of Teach For India Fellows
Every Teach For India Fellow has two main responsibilities, through which they learn leadership skills in a hands-on, results-driven environment:
- Classroom Instructional LeadershipFellows are full-time teachers in English-medium government or low-income private schools for two consecutive academic years.
Fellows are expected to lead students toward academic achievement. Fellows foster this achievement by getting to know their students in and out of the classroom; creating instructional plans to match the whole class’ and individual student’s needs; delivering instruction in an engaging manner; working with other teachers, administrators and community members to build skills and obtain resources for the classroom; and administering and analyzing assessments to ensure that students are progressing towards their academic goals.
- School Transformation/Leadership ProjectIn addition to teaching, a Fellow implements a transformational project in the school and/or students’ community directed towards impacting any challenge towards the achievement of their students.
Fellows create innovative and sustainable solutions to this problem. To carry out this project effectively, Fellows research and plan the project; invest students, families, teachers, administrators and/or community members to help implement the project; and troubleshoot the project in its execution phase.
By designing, implementing and managing a small-scale, sustainable project within the school community, Fellows build upon their leadership and project management skills. These leadership and management skills are transferable and Fellows can utilize the lessons learned through this project in other work they do after the duration of the Fellowship. Through this project, Fellows also develop a deep understanding of the many barriers to achievement and the complex problems associated with achieving equity in education. This experience shapes and guides the methods through which Fellows tackle educational inequity in the country, both in the short term and long term.
Profile of Teach For India Fellows, Batch of 2009 and 2010
Background:
All our Fellows believe that we need a movement for educational equity in order to transform India. Below is an indicative profile of our Fellows. We continue to build momentum at colleges and organizations and are certain that our next batch of Fellows will add to the diversity at Teach For India.
Age range
Anyone born after 1st January 1976 is eligible to apply for the 2012 Fellowship
Regional diversity
Teach for India Fellows come from all over India, with adequate representation from all geographical regions of the country.
We also have international representation from the UK, Australia, Asia comprising around 10 percent of the Teach for India Fellows.
Examples of leadership positions that our Fellows hold
Our Fellows have demonstrated leadership in a variety of ways – college festival coordinators, editors of college magazines, leaders of diverse college clubs and societies, managers of departments and projects at work, heads of sports teams and clubs, corporate team leaders, leaders of youth groups such as AISEC and Rotaract.
Examples of commitment to the community
Participants of Corporate CSR initiatives, NSS members, volunteers at low-income schools and communities, volunteers at animal shelters, leaders and members of social initiatives and projects, writers on matters of social concern.
Educational Institutions that our Fellows attended:
- Anna University, Chennai
- BITS Pilani
- Fergusson College, Pune
- Brown University, USA
- Christ College, Bengaluru
- Fergusson College, Pune
- Georgetown University, USA
- Harvard University
- HR College, Mumbai
- IIM, Calcutta
- ISB, Hyderabad
- IIT (Bombay, Madras, Delhi, Kanpur, Roorkee)
- Jai Hind College, Mumbai
- Lady Sriram College, Delhi
- Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad
- Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies
- National Institute of Technology (Calicut, Kurukshetra, Surat, Surathkal, Tiruchirapalli)
- Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Confict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia
- National Law School, Bengaluru
- Princeton University, USA
- Sophia’s College, Mumbai
- Sriram College of Commerce, Delhi
- St. Stephen’s College, Delhi
- St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai
- St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata
- Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune
- Vellore Institute of Technology
Organizations our Fellows have worked with:
- Accenture
- Aditya Birla Group- Idea Cellular
- Akanksha Foundation
- Ashoka Foundation
- Axis Bank
- Bharat Petroleum
- Britannia Industries
- CII
- Citibank
- Ernst & Young
- Godrej Indsutries
- Goldman Sachs
- HDFC Standard Life Insurance
- Hewlett Packard
- Hindustan Unilever
- ICICI
- Infosys
- JP Morgan Chase
- JSW Foundation
- Larsen and Toubro
- Mahindra and Mahindra
- Mastek Ltd.
- McKinsey and Company
- Pratham Infotech Foundation
- Reliance
- Religare Finvest Ltd.
- Tata Group of Companies
- Wells Fargo
- Thermax
- Wipro
Read what our Fellows have to say about the Teach For India movement:
“Having received the best education myself, I understood the power of knowledge and the impact it can have on the society. From this stemmed the belief in the potential of these young untapped minds, which once equipped with knowledge can transform the fate of our nation.“
- Saurabh Taneja, Marketiks-WNS Group Company, IIT Delhi
“I could transform the way these kids from poor backgrounds learn as well as develop myself to constantly support such good causes throughout. I felt that not only I was getting 2 years of excellent work experience but also a wonderful personal transformation.“
- Krishna Yadavalli (2010 Fellow), IIT Madras
“Over the past year I have had struggles, setbacks, successes, moments of despair and amazements. Yet, my classroom continues to motivate me to work relentlessly and not give it up – truly bringing about the best in me. I have to come believe that a teacher has the power to bring about the best in a child. I have also come to realize that educating children and bringing about a change in them is a slow process and it requires a lot of effort. I now understand that it is not just about building schools and hiring teachers, but also about providing teachers with quality training and ensuring that they put their learning to practice.“
- Karan Talreja (2010 Fellow), Samsung India, NIT Bhopal
“There are 2 kinds of youth in India – one who choose to go and yell on TV and the others, like me, who join Teach For India. It just seemed like the best option for me after my management studies to use my skills to the fullest. I knew I couldn’t have found a bigger crisis management project than this one. No obstacle was big enough as compared to my determination to join Teach For India – some family and close friends did voice their genuine concern that got sorted the minute they understood the entire model and my dedication to the cause. My biggest challenge – to speak in Hindi, to keep up the ‘sense of possibility’, to invest my students continuously in the big goal and to make them realize that Bhaiyya is here for you to make a difference in your life – its not the same as any other class teacher.“
- Anirrban Mukherjii (2009 Fellow), St. Xaviers College, Mumbai
“Every single hurdle has been an amazing feat for me to achieve and I have grown in ways unimaginable. Every moment of realization has felt like attaining enlightenment. I have never known such boundless happiness and I feel honoured to be surrounded by such hope, positivity and love.“
- Anasuya Menon (2009 Fellow), St. Xaviers College, Mumbai
