A lack of education is the root of several major issues in India, and the right education for all our citizens has the potential to solve all these problems at one time:
• If we educate India in the right way, our citizens will gain the necessary skills to survive in a competitive world. This would lead to better paying jobs and a higher standard of living, hence solving the crisis of poverty.
• If we educate India in the right way, our citizens will have a broader mindset. This would lead to greater tolerance and an appreciation for all religions, hence solving the crises of religious violence and caste discrimination.
• If we educate India in the right way, our citizens will be able to better understand the negative repercussions and immoral nature of fraudulent activities, hence solving the crisis of corruption.
• If we educate India in the right way, our citizens will shy away from radical ideologies and will not be acquiesced easily, hence solving the crisis of terrorism.
• If we educate India in the right way, our citizens will gain a moral conscience, and realize the worth of a human life and the position of women in society, hence solving the crisis of human rights violations.
Education goes far beyond writing your name, or reading a book. It is truly about transforming the entire nation.
India is currently facing one of the worst educational crises in the world. If you can read this page - you should feel extremely privileged. As an Indian citizen, the odds that you can read are just barely in your favor - 30% of India is illiterate. Besides the literacy rate being despicable
• Our classrooms are understaffed (1 in 4 teachers will be absent on any given day)
• Our teachers could be more engaged (Only 50% are likely to be teaching at any given time)
• Our drop-out rate is unusually high (More than 1 in 3 children who begin primary school will drop out before reaching 5th grade)
• Our education spend is relatively low (India spends only 3.3 percent of its GDP on education, compared to an average 5.8 percent in developed countries)
If we want to change these numbers, we need to wake up, and be the change. We need each and every citizen of India to be a significant part of the solution. We need to lead our country out of this crisis.
Theory of Change
Teach For India believes that in order for the country to achieve educational equity for all children, we need a movement of leaders across sectors who are committed to and will work toward ensuring that every child in India receives an excellent education.
• To build this movement of leaders, Teach For India recruits India’s most outstanding college graduates and young professionals to serve as teachers in low-income schools for two years. In the short run, these young leaders act as a source of dedicated teachers in government and low-income private schools. Teach For India provides resources, training, and support to the Fellows so they can employ innovative teaching strategies and maximize their effectiveness in the classroom. During the two-years, Fellows gain important knowledge and experience of India’s educational system and its challenges, which enables them to provide solutions to problems faced within their classrooms and school communities.
• In the long-run, Teach For India will build a powerful and ever-growing leadership force of alumni who, informed by their experiences and insights, will work from inside and outside the educational system to effect fundamental, long-term changes necessary to ultimately realize educational opportunity for all. Upon completion of their two years of service, Teach For India Alumni will collaborate through the organization’s Alumni Network, and regardless of the career path they choose after their Teach For India Fellowship, will work toward fighting educational inequity in India.
What does the Teach For India Fellowship entail?
The Teach For India Fellowship is a two-year paid assignment during which Fellows are placed as full-time class teachers in low-income schools. Throughout the Fellowship, Teach For India Fellows help close the achievement gap by leading their students to significant academic gains. In the second year of the Fellowship, Fellows implement a school-wide project to address one major obstacle to learning in their community.
Teach for India are Looking for
Applicant prerequisites:
Young and experienced professionals and students in their final year of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree, are encouraged to apply.
Undergraduate degree - You must have completed all coursework required for your undergraduate degree (Bachelor’s degree equivalent) from an accredited college or university by last week of May 2012. You also must have received a secondary school diploma in order to be considered for admission.
Academic Record:
Both your graduate (and post-graduate transcripts if you are a post-graduate student) will be reviewed with scrutiny before an admission decision can be taken. Applicants must also pass any coursework indicated in their transcripts as in progress at the time of the interview.
Indian national/foreign national status:
Teach For India accepts applications from: 1) Indian citizens and 2) foreign nationals of Indian origin. Foreign citizens who are not of Indian origin are not eligible to apply.
Commitment and Location:
All applicants must be willing to make a full-time commitment to teaching and living in one of our placement cities (Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad) starting June 2012 to be part of the Teach For India Fellowship. Fellows of the program will be full-time staff members of the schools in which they are placed and will work stipulated school hours, six days a week.
English Fluency:
You must be fluent in English to be part of the Teach For India Fellowship, as we will be placing our Fellows in English-medium schools and will conduct all our training in English.
Age limit:
ince the Teach For India Fellowship aims at building future leaders, applicants will have to be born after 1st January 1976.
Who we are looking for:
Teach For India is looking for applicants who will be leaders in the classroom and beyond. We recognize that leaders come in many forms with varied past experiences, so there is no one profile of an ideal applicant. There are many ways to demonstrate leadership qualities, and we view applicants holistically by looking for evidence of demonstrated past achievement: achieving ambitious, measurable results in academics, extra-curricular activities, and/or work leadership.
We will select our Fellows based on their emerging leadership skills, specifically looking for:
• Ability to achieve ambitious goals
• Ability to work effectively in challenging environments
• Ability to think and plan strategically
• Communication skills
• Commitment to continuously improving performance
• Ability to think critically and base decisions on data and logic
• Commitment to the Teach For India mission
We also seek evidence that applicants operate with professionalism and integrity, and meet basic writing standards.
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 Leadership
Fellows 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 Project
In addition to teaching, a Fellow implement 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.
Why should I join Teach For India?
Teach For India offers you the chance to make a real difference in tackling one of India’s most pressing challenges — educational inequity. By presenting you with one of the most difficult challenges of your life, the Fellowship will help you develop leadership skills that are critical in today’s dynamic and fast-changing global work environment. You will leave the Fellowship literally ready for anything — and with the experience to advocate for a future in which all children have access to an excellent education.
What are the profiles of Teach For India Fellows?
Teach For India Fellows make a very diverse group of people, brought together by their past achievements and their passion to eliminate educational inequity. They hail from all backgrounds of study and work and range between 20 and 35 years of age. They come from a wide range of colleges such as IITs, IIMs, St.Stephen’s, St.Xavier’s, Christ University, Presidency College etc and companies such as Accenture, McKinskey, Mahindra & Mahindra, IBM, Ernst & Young, Schlumberger etc. By joining the Fellowship, you will get an opportunity to work with some of the brightest and most enterprising brains of the country! The figure below shows the distribution of our Fellows by profile
How does Teach For India’s approach to teaching differ from traditional approaches?
Teach For India’s “Teaching As Leadership” (TAL) model is based on the belief that excellent teachers employ the same skills as excellent leaders in any field. The TAL model requires teachers to plan purposefully, execute effectively, work relentlessly and reflect continuously in order to push students to significant academic gains.
Through the TAL model, Fellows become extraordinary leaders who can help their students make significant academic gains in the short run and advocate for systemic educational reform in the long run.
Which standard will I be teaching and what will be the medium of instruction?
Teach For India Fellows are placed in 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th standard classrooms where they teach all major subjects - including English, mathematics, reading, history and science — with the exception of regional languages. English is the medium of instruction in all Teach For India schools and Fellows are not expected to know their students’ mother tongues.
Will I be trained adequately before I start teaching?
Teach For India will work relentlessly to ensure that all Fellows have the knowledge and skills necessary to lead their students towards achievement. The Teach For India Fellowship begins with a five-week Institute in May or June of 2012 that helps Fellows understand curriculum, create long-term and lesson plans, present content to students in a clear and engaging way, facilitate student practice and assess student progress, among other keys to successful teaching. Additionally, each Fellow will have a mentor in the form of a Program Manager whose primary responsibility is to guide Fellows to become effective teachers and leaders.
How much will I be paid during the Fellowship?
Teach For India Fellows will be paid a stipend of Rs. 16,000 per month. If required to relocate from their home city, Fellows will be given a housing allowance ranging from Rs.6,500 to Rs.8,000, depending on the city in which they will stay. In addition, Fellows will receive an allowance for school supplies.
How will the Teach For India experience help me grow professionally?
Teach For India strongly believes that excellent teachers employ the same skills as excellent leaders in any field, and that spending two years in the classroom will help Fellows develop leadership skills, such as organization, communication, problem-solving in an unstructured environment, people management and resourcefulness, that are valuable in any sector. Teach For India will select Fellows who have demonstrated excellence in the past and will work with them throughout the two-year Fellowship to ensure that they take advantage of the experience to become extraordinary future leaders.
What options will be open to me after the Fellowship?
Teach For India’s first batch of Fellows graduated in April 2011. The 80 alumni are now spread all over the country and abroad in jobs ranging from consulting to education startups; and as students in top universities such as Harvard, Cornell, Chicago Booth and Columbia. Teach For India supports its Fellows to pursue their individual career interests by training and mentoring them and striving to build relationships with top schools, universities, NGOs, and corporates throughout the country. Teach For India has already established close ties with HDFC, Godrej Industries, Harvard Business School, IIM Bangalore, the Indian School of Business, McKinsey & Company, Tata Consultancy Services, Columbia Law School, Ernst & Young and the Thermax Group, among many others. Please visit to know about our alumni in detail.
As the experience of Teach For America alumni shows, Teach For India alumni will be in high demand in any sector because they have the experience of overcoming immense challenges and have developed widely applicable leadership skills. Teach For America today has 20,000 alumni, several of whom have started their own groups of schools or work in the field of policy-making for education reforms.
• If we educate India in the right way, our citizens will gain the necessary skills to survive in a competitive world. This would lead to better paying jobs and a higher standard of living, hence solving the crisis of poverty.
• If we educate India in the right way, our citizens will have a broader mindset. This would lead to greater tolerance and an appreciation for all religions, hence solving the crises of religious violence and caste discrimination.
• If we educate India in the right way, our citizens will be able to better understand the negative repercussions and immoral nature of fraudulent activities, hence solving the crisis of corruption.
• If we educate India in the right way, our citizens will shy away from radical ideologies and will not be acquiesced easily, hence solving the crisis of terrorism.
• If we educate India in the right way, our citizens will gain a moral conscience, and realize the worth of a human life and the position of women in society, hence solving the crisis of human rights violations.
Education goes far beyond writing your name, or reading a book. It is truly about transforming the entire nation.
India is currently facing one of the worst educational crises in the world. If you can read this page - you should feel extremely privileged. As an Indian citizen, the odds that you can read are just barely in your favor - 30% of India is illiterate. Besides the literacy rate being despicable
• Our classrooms are understaffed (1 in 4 teachers will be absent on any given day)
• Our teachers could be more engaged (Only 50% are likely to be teaching at any given time)
• Our drop-out rate is unusually high (More than 1 in 3 children who begin primary school will drop out before reaching 5th grade)
• Our education spend is relatively low (India spends only 3.3 percent of its GDP on education, compared to an average 5.8 percent in developed countries)
If we want to change these numbers, we need to wake up, and be the change. We need each and every citizen of India to be a significant part of the solution. We need to lead our country out of this crisis.
Theory of Change
Teach For India believes that in order for the country to achieve educational equity for all children, we need a movement of leaders across sectors who are committed to and will work toward ensuring that every child in India receives an excellent education.
• To build this movement of leaders, Teach For India recruits India’s most outstanding college graduates and young professionals to serve as teachers in low-income schools for two years. In the short run, these young leaders act as a source of dedicated teachers in government and low-income private schools. Teach For India provides resources, training, and support to the Fellows so they can employ innovative teaching strategies and maximize their effectiveness in the classroom. During the two-years, Fellows gain important knowledge and experience of India’s educational system and its challenges, which enables them to provide solutions to problems faced within their classrooms and school communities.
• In the long-run, Teach For India will build a powerful and ever-growing leadership force of alumni who, informed by their experiences and insights, will work from inside and outside the educational system to effect fundamental, long-term changes necessary to ultimately realize educational opportunity for all. Upon completion of their two years of service, Teach For India Alumni will collaborate through the organization’s Alumni Network, and regardless of the career path they choose after their Teach For India Fellowship, will work toward fighting educational inequity in India.
What does the Teach For India Fellowship entail?
The Teach For India Fellowship is a two-year paid assignment during which Fellows are placed as full-time class teachers in low-income schools. Throughout the Fellowship, Teach For India Fellows help close the achievement gap by leading their students to significant academic gains. In the second year of the Fellowship, Fellows implement a school-wide project to address one major obstacle to learning in their community.
Teach for India are Looking for
Applicant prerequisites:
Young and experienced professionals and students in their final year of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree, are encouraged to apply.
Undergraduate degree - You must have completed all coursework required for your undergraduate degree (Bachelor’s degree equivalent) from an accredited college or university by last week of May 2012. You also must have received a secondary school diploma in order to be considered for admission.
Academic Record:
Both your graduate (and post-graduate transcripts if you are a post-graduate student) will be reviewed with scrutiny before an admission decision can be taken. Applicants must also pass any coursework indicated in their transcripts as in progress at the time of the interview.
Indian national/foreign national status:
Teach For India accepts applications from: 1) Indian citizens and 2) foreign nationals of Indian origin. Foreign citizens who are not of Indian origin are not eligible to apply.
Commitment and Location:
All applicants must be willing to make a full-time commitment to teaching and living in one of our placement cities (Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad) starting June 2012 to be part of the Teach For India Fellowship. Fellows of the program will be full-time staff members of the schools in which they are placed and will work stipulated school hours, six days a week.
English Fluency:
You must be fluent in English to be part of the Teach For India Fellowship, as we will be placing our Fellows in English-medium schools and will conduct all our training in English.
Age limit:
ince the Teach For India Fellowship aims at building future leaders, applicants will have to be born after 1st January 1976.
Who we are looking for:
Teach For India is looking for applicants who will be leaders in the classroom and beyond. We recognize that leaders come in many forms with varied past experiences, so there is no one profile of an ideal applicant. There are many ways to demonstrate leadership qualities, and we view applicants holistically by looking for evidence of demonstrated past achievement: achieving ambitious, measurable results in academics, extra-curricular activities, and/or work leadership.
We will select our Fellows based on their emerging leadership skills, specifically looking for:
• Ability to achieve ambitious goals
• Ability to work effectively in challenging environments
• Ability to think and plan strategically
• Communication skills
• Commitment to continuously improving performance
• Ability to think critically and base decisions on data and logic
• Commitment to the Teach For India mission
We also seek evidence that applicants operate with professionalism and integrity, and meet basic writing standards.
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 Leadership
Fellows 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 Project
In addition to teaching, a Fellow implement 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.
Why should I join Teach For India?
Teach For India offers you the chance to make a real difference in tackling one of India’s most pressing challenges — educational inequity. By presenting you with one of the most difficult challenges of your life, the Fellowship will help you develop leadership skills that are critical in today’s dynamic and fast-changing global work environment. You will leave the Fellowship literally ready for anything — and with the experience to advocate for a future in which all children have access to an excellent education.
What are the profiles of Teach For India Fellows?
Teach For India Fellows make a very diverse group of people, brought together by their past achievements and their passion to eliminate educational inequity. They hail from all backgrounds of study and work and range between 20 and 35 years of age. They come from a wide range of colleges such as IITs, IIMs, St.Stephen’s, St.Xavier’s, Christ University, Presidency College etc and companies such as Accenture, McKinskey, Mahindra & Mahindra, IBM, Ernst & Young, Schlumberger etc. By joining the Fellowship, you will get an opportunity to work with some of the brightest and most enterprising brains of the country! The figure below shows the distribution of our Fellows by profile
How does Teach For India’s approach to teaching differ from traditional approaches?
Teach For India’s “Teaching As Leadership” (TAL) model is based on the belief that excellent teachers employ the same skills as excellent leaders in any field. The TAL model requires teachers to plan purposefully, execute effectively, work relentlessly and reflect continuously in order to push students to significant academic gains.
Through the TAL model, Fellows become extraordinary leaders who can help their students make significant academic gains in the short run and advocate for systemic educational reform in the long run.
Which standard will I be teaching and what will be the medium of instruction?
Teach For India Fellows are placed in 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th standard classrooms where they teach all major subjects - including English, mathematics, reading, history and science — with the exception of regional languages. English is the medium of instruction in all Teach For India schools and Fellows are not expected to know their students’ mother tongues.
Will I be trained adequately before I start teaching?
Teach For India will work relentlessly to ensure that all Fellows have the knowledge and skills necessary to lead their students towards achievement. The Teach For India Fellowship begins with a five-week Institute in May or June of 2012 that helps Fellows understand curriculum, create long-term and lesson plans, present content to students in a clear and engaging way, facilitate student practice and assess student progress, among other keys to successful teaching. Additionally, each Fellow will have a mentor in the form of a Program Manager whose primary responsibility is to guide Fellows to become effective teachers and leaders.
How much will I be paid during the Fellowship?
Teach For India Fellows will be paid a stipend of Rs. 16,000 per month. If required to relocate from their home city, Fellows will be given a housing allowance ranging from Rs.6,500 to Rs.8,000, depending on the city in which they will stay. In addition, Fellows will receive an allowance for school supplies.
How will the Teach For India experience help me grow professionally?
Teach For India strongly believes that excellent teachers employ the same skills as excellent leaders in any field, and that spending two years in the classroom will help Fellows develop leadership skills, such as organization, communication, problem-solving in an unstructured environment, people management and resourcefulness, that are valuable in any sector. Teach For India will select Fellows who have demonstrated excellence in the past and will work with them throughout the two-year Fellowship to ensure that they take advantage of the experience to become extraordinary future leaders.
What options will be open to me after the Fellowship?
Teach For India’s first batch of Fellows graduated in April 2011. The 80 alumni are now spread all over the country and abroad in jobs ranging from consulting to education startups; and as students in top universities such as Harvard, Cornell, Chicago Booth and Columbia. Teach For India supports its Fellows to pursue their individual career interests by training and mentoring them and striving to build relationships with top schools, universities, NGOs, and corporates throughout the country. Teach For India has already established close ties with HDFC, Godrej Industries, Harvard Business School, IIM Bangalore, the Indian School of Business, McKinsey & Company, Tata Consultancy Services, Columbia Law School, Ernst & Young and the Thermax Group, among many others. Please visit to know about our alumni in detail.
As the experience of Teach For America alumni shows, Teach For India alumni will be in high demand in any sector because they have the experience of overcoming immense challenges and have developed widely applicable leadership skills. Teach For America today has 20,000 alumni, several of whom have started their own groups of schools or work in the field of policy-making for education reforms.
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