The Teach For India Fellowship is a 2-year full-time paid opportunity for India’s most promising individuals, both recent graduates, and working professionals, to serve as teachers to children in some of the nation’s most under-resourced schools. Recruitment for the 2022-2024 cohort will open on July 1st.
The Teach For India Fellowship recruits and selects bright and promising individuals for a full-time, paid commitment to serve as teachers to children from low-income communities in some of the nation’s most under-resourced schools. Through two years of the ‘Teaching As Leadership’ model, training, support, and on-ground exposure, Fellows will transform as teachers in the short-term, while also developing critical leadership development skills in the long-term. Our Fellows will work across 260 schools across Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Chennai.
In June 2021, 19% of children interviewed by the Protsahan Foundation mentioned that they or their elder sibling had to start working, to help the family income, during the pandemic. With school closures now on for over fifteen months, the education sector has had to deal with some of the country’s most plaguing issues. Increased exposure of children to violence, migration and abuse, has led to a mental health pandemic among children, and declining school enrolment. According to the UNICEF, 9 mn children are at the risk of being pushed into child labour, globally. With more children being pushed into poverty, their ability to access quality education has reduced. The role of teachers is the most crucial at this juncture; Teachers who want to stand up for the country, and deeply believe in the power of education.
Swetha Balakrishnan, Director of Recruitment at Teach For India says, “Now more than ever, we need India’s youth to turn into nation builders – to take a brave step towards solving issues of social injustice and inequity. The Teach For India Fellowship offers the opportunity to do just that – to get on the ground, work closely with children with the greatest need, offer them opportunities towards a better future – and do all of this while pushing their own boundaries of leadership and civic engagement.”
“My Fellowship not only taught me people management of 52 over-enthusiastic students but also helped me connect with students individually and learn from each of them. Most importantly, the experience organically taught me about myself, my long-term vision and helped me figure out how to get there.” – Aniket Aich, 2019 Delhi Alumnus.
In 2021, only 8.3% of the applicants who applied were selected. It has welcomed candidates from top colleges such as Anna University, NIT Suratkal, Stella Maris College, St. Xavier’s College, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Thakur College of Science and Commerce, Patkar Varde College, Mumbai, University of Mysore, Denison University and Leeds Beckett University among others. Fellows hail from top corporations such as Citigroup, Deloitte, EY, Thomson Reuters, Citigroup, Tata Group, Wipro, and JP Morgan Chase.
Our Alumni have widespread reach as they are cumulatively reaching more than 33 million children – or 1 in 10 children in India – through their work across schools, communities, policy, and various levels of the system
“Teach For India Alumni come with a sense of imagination and realism, their ground work in the classrooms and communities has given them a hard realistic look at the inequity and injustice children face and what it takes to create a shift. Their love, intelligence and tenacity let’s them imagine a more fair and luminous world as they dedicate their lives to creating the path for equity” says Nisaba Godrej, Executive Chairperson, Godrej Consumer Products & Chairperson.
Arshad, a grade 10 student shared about his fellow, Subhankar Paul, a 2014 Alumni, “Subhankar Bhaiya taught me what it means to be a good human being, in class, on the field and in life. That is who I want to be.”
As the world has switched to a blended model of instruction, the past year has been extremely challenging for Students, Parents and Fellows. The Fellowship was able to pivot into an online operation model quickly, without compromising both scale and quality. To cope with looming learning loss across the country, India needs leaders with courage, and who will do whatever it takes to stand up for its children. The cohort recruited this year will have the opportunity to finally resume in-school instruction, depending on vaccine availability across the country and the rapidly changing situation.
