More than 800 college students and young professionals have applied to Teach For India 2009
Namita Devidayal
Until recently, Garima Kapila, a management consultant with a leading multinational, was working in offices, analysing data, working with industry experts, and checking her client's progress in relation to the targets she had laid out for them. She loved her job but something was missing. She wanted more.
Suddenly, all that has changed. Now, the 24 year-old IIT graduate finds that even when she shuts down her laptop she can't stop thinking about work. Her first thoughts when she wakes up are, “What can I do to make this fantastic programme work? How can I get more applications in today?”
Kapila recently left her coveted consulting job to become the Mumbai director for Teach For India, an impassioned movement that is gradually becoming the buzzword in college campuses, which have been touched by it. Suddenly, students and even young professionals like Kapila are sitting up and saying, “We want to be the agents of change. We don’t consider this a compromise but, rather, a career enhancer.”
Teach For India is a programme based on Teach For America, which aims to narrow educational inequities by placing India's most outstanding college graduates and young professionals in low-income schools to teach for two years. The programme is being supported by some of the top corporates in the country, including McKinsey, Thermax and the Aditya Birla group and ICICI. These companies have agreed to send two young professionals (if they qualify), pay their stipend for the time they are away, and take them back in when they complete the teaching stint, simply because they believe that the challenge will enhance their capabilities.
So far, more than 4,000 people from cities across India have registered on the site, and about 800 have sent in their applications. In The selection process comprises a rigorous screening of applicants, followed by a daylong interview where the applicant will also have to go through the motions of teaching in a simulated classroom. The applicants include top performers from leading colleges as well as companies.
The initial applications are revealing. For instance, a student from a top Mumbai arts college wrote in her essay, “I want to be humbled by the responsibilities of being a teacher. I want to wake up early each morning knowing that I will be affecting lives today and sleep late at night hoping that I’ve done it the right way. I want to be struck with that glorious moment I’ve so often read about, but can only imagine, when the nobility and magnanimity of a career as a teacher strikes you. I want to spend my days carefully because I know that any mistake on my part could cause devastating consequences, that doing anything but my best is something I must practice first, then preach. I want to be TFI Fellow because I want to be given the opportunity to be educated.”
An analyst at a multinational wrote in thus: “Having been successful in my career thus far, I have now reached the point when I am ready to try something different. I want to help fire the Indian education revolution that is around the corner.” Teach For India founder Shaheen Mistri says that she is quite amazed by the kinds of questions and responses she has been getting while recruiting fellows for the 2009 teaching programme. People want to know more, they have their own skepticism which has made even us sit up and think. For instance, some want to know: Why are the placements only in urban areas? Why are the fellows being placed in schools given that the greatest inequity is among children who are not even in school? Why in the English language? Will this really bring about a systemic change?
But the underlying enthusiasm is unmistakable, says Mistri. “People are beginning to understand that as one person, I have such limited impact but by being a part of such a great network, one can really make a difference.”
GRADUATE SCHOOL PARTNERS
The Indian School of Business Sadhana Centre for Management and Leadership Development (SCMLD) SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR)
CORPORATE PARTNERS
Aditya Birla Group
AFL
Ambit
AZB Law
Citigroup
Forbes Marshall
Godrej
HDFC
HDFC Standard Life Insurance
Hindustan Unilever
ICICI Bank
ICICI Prudential
JSW Steel
Mastek
McKinsey & Company
Monitor Group
Tata Chemicals
Tata Power
Thermax
Zensar Technologies
Suddenly, all that has changed. Now, the 24 year-old IIT graduate finds that even when she shuts down her laptop she can't stop thinking about work. Her first thoughts when she wakes up are, “What can I do to make this fantastic programme work? How can I get more applications in today?”
Kapila recently left her coveted consulting job to become the Mumbai director for Teach For India, an impassioned movement that is gradually becoming the buzzword in college campuses, which have been touched by it. Suddenly, students and even young professionals like Kapila are sitting up and saying, “We want to be the agents of change. We don’t consider this a compromise but, rather, a career enhancer.”
Teach For India is a programme based on Teach For America, which aims to narrow educational inequities by placing India's most outstanding college graduates and young professionals in low-income schools to teach for two years. The programme is being supported by some of the top corporates in the country, including McKinsey, Thermax and the Aditya Birla group and ICICI. These companies have agreed to send two young professionals (if they qualify), pay their stipend for the time they are away, and take them back in when they complete the teaching stint, simply because they believe that the challenge will enhance their capabilities.
So far, more than 4,000 people from cities across India have registered on the site, and about 800 have sent in their applications. In The selection process comprises a rigorous screening of applicants, followed by a daylong interview where the applicant will also have to go through the motions of teaching in a simulated classroom. The applicants include top performers from leading colleges as well as companies.
The initial applications are revealing. For instance, a student from a top Mumbai arts college wrote in her essay, “I want to be humbled by the responsibilities of being a teacher. I want to wake up early each morning knowing that I will be affecting lives today and sleep late at night hoping that I’ve done it the right way. I want to be struck with that glorious moment I’ve so often read about, but can only imagine, when the nobility and magnanimity of a career as a teacher strikes you. I want to spend my days carefully because I know that any mistake on my part could cause devastating consequences, that doing anything but my best is something I must practice first, then preach. I want to be TFI Fellow because I want to be given the opportunity to be educated.”
An analyst at a multinational wrote in thus: “Having been successful in my career thus far, I have now reached the point when I am ready to try something different. I want to help fire the Indian education revolution that is around the corner.” Teach For India founder Shaheen Mistri says that she is quite amazed by the kinds of questions and responses she has been getting while recruiting fellows for the 2009 teaching programme. People want to know more, they have their own skepticism which has made even us sit up and think. For instance, some want to know: Why are the placements only in urban areas? Why are the fellows being placed in schools given that the greatest inequity is among children who are not even in school? Why in the English language? Will this really bring about a systemic change?
But the underlying enthusiasm is unmistakable, says Mistri. “People are beginning to understand that as one person, I have such limited impact but by being a part of such a great network, one can really make a difference.”
GRADUATE SCHOOL PARTNERS
The Indian School of Business Sadhana Centre for Management and Leadership Development (SCMLD) SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR)
CORPORATE PARTNERS
Aditya Birla Group
AFL
Ambit
AZB Law
Citigroup
Forbes Marshall
Godrej
HDFC
HDFC Standard Life Insurance
Hindustan Unilever
ICICI Bank
ICICI Prudential
JSW Steel
Mastek
McKinsey & Company
Monitor Group
Tata Chemicals
Tata Power
Thermax
Zensar Technologies
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment