ISR – INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

PALLAVI SRIVASTAVA HPGD/AP15/0060

Social Cause : Poor Education in IndiaNGO : Teach For India

PRIN. L. N. WELINGKAR INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT & RESEARCH

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August 2016

Table of Contents

Introduction....................................................................................................................................3

Issues.........................................................................................................................................4

India disappoints in educational outcome test...........................................................................6

THE EDUCATION CRISIS..................................................................................................13

NGO-Teach for India...................................................................................................................14

Areas in which Teach For India Works....................................................................................16

The Teach for India model.......................................................................................................22

FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM.........................................................................................................22

ALUMNI MOVEMENT...............................................................................................................24

Challenges faced by TFI model...............................................................................................25

Initiatives By Teach For India...................................................................................................27

Maya.....................................................................................................................................27

inspirED...............................................................................................................................29

Firki......................................................................................................................................30

Circles of Impact......................................................................................................................32

Student impact.....................................................................................................................33

Fellow Impact.......................................................................................................................38

Reported Results.....................................................................................................................40

Other Indian NGOs Working Toward Education Equality............................................................42

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Introduction

India is a country with more than one billion people, and just one-third of them can read. Rapidly

growing size of population, shortages of teachers, books, and basic facilities, and insufficient

public funds to cover education costs are some of the nation’s toughest challenges. This is

where Children in India are facing the basic challenges. According to a study, more than 30% of

educational funds are allocated towards higher education, leaving the primary education in

India in sway.

India is fourth among the top 10 nations with the highest numbers of out-of children in primary

level. Furthermore, the rate of school drop-outs amongst students is very high. One of the main

reasons behind this is poverty. When earning a livelihood and taking care of the members of the

family becomes a primary matter of concern in one’s life, education stands a little or, very often,

no chance of pursuance. For the underprivileged people in India, education is perceived as a

high-priced luxury, and this negative outlook continues on with every new generation.

A disproportionate number of total out-of-school children in India are girls. What denies equal

opportunities of children are serious social issues that have arose out of caste, class and

gender differences. The practice of child labour in India and resistance to sending girls to

school in several parts of the country remain as genuine concerns. If the current trend

continues, millions of underprivileged children will probably never set foot in a classroom.

India’s growth relies on a well-educated and skilled workforce. Improving education is a critical

area of investment. A shabby foundation in primary education can overturn the lives, careers

and productivity of millions of its citizens. Already, a considerable proportion of the adult

workforce in India is acutely under-equipped to be eligible for skilled and semi-skilled jobs. In

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order to build India as a consumer market of global standards, it is very important that every

child reaps the benefits of quality education.

About 96 percent of India’s children are enrolled in schools, but educational standards have

been declining since 2010 — when the RTE was implemented — noted the 2012 ASER report,

which surveyed almost 600,000 children in 28 states in India. The ASER survey revealed that

only a quarter of Indian students in third grade can do a simple two-digit subtraction problem,

down from more than one-third in 2010.

A recent report tabled in parliament that over 100,000 schools in India have just one teacher is

an alarming wake-up call for the government and all stakeholders.

Issues While many schools were built, they had poor infrastructure and inadequate facilities.

Schools in the rural areas were especially affected. According to District Information

System for Education (DISE) in India in 2009, only about 51.5% of all schools in India

have boundary walls, 16.65% have computers and 39% have electricity. Of which, only

6.47% of primary schools and 33.4% of upper primary schools have computers, and only

27.7% of primary schools have electricity. Learning in poorly furnished schools was not

conducive, resulting in poor quality education.

Furthermore, the absence rates of teachers and students were high, while their

retainment rates low. The incentives for going to school were not apparent, while

punishment for absence was not enforced. Despite the government’s decree on

compulsory education and the child labour ban, many children were still missing classes

to go to work. The government did not interfere even when children missed school.

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Also, online country studies publications by the Federal Research Division of the Library

of Congress stated that “it was not unusual for the teacher to be absent or even to

subcontract the teaching work to unqualified substitutes”. This exacerbates the problems

of the lack of qualified teachers. Currently, the student-teacher ratio remains high at

around 32, which is not much of an improvement since 2006 when the ratio was 34.

Economic and social disparities also plague the fundamentals of the education system.

Rural children are less able to receive education because of greater opportunity costs,

since rural children have to work to contribute to the family’s income. According to the

Annual Status of Education in 2009, the average attendance rate of students in the rural

states is about 75%. Though this rate varies significantly, states like Uttar Pradesh and

Bihar had more than 40% absentees during a random visit to their schools. In the urban

states, more than 90% of the students were present in their schools during a visit.

Banners blocking the road signals, Celebrity worships, poor public toilet systems, Litters

in roads, slums and huts all over even in metro cities are the worst ever issue in India.

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India disappoints in educational outcome testIndia would appear to have partially arrested the downward spiral in the quality of learning of

school children in rural areas but there is little to cheer about the country’s performance,

according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) published on Tuesday, Jan 15

2015.

The enrolment level is near universal with 96.7% of children registered in schools during 2014,

the same as 2013, according to ASER 2014, published by education non-profit organization

Pratham Education Foundation.

The proportion of all children in Class 5 who can read a Class 2 text has improved by 1

percentage point from 2013—48.1% children of Class 5 could read a class 2 text in 2014

against 47% in the previous year. This means every second Class 5 student in rural India can’t

read the text of a class three levels below.

In 2005, when the first ASER report was published, three out of five children in Class 5 were

able to read a Class 2 text. This is the 10th ASER report. This year, the foundation surveyed

577 rural districts across India for the report.

“Stagnation has happened but at a low level. That’s the reality,” said Madhav Chavan, chief

executive and president of Pratham. He said things have not changed much despite

government levying a tax to fund education and enacting a law to ensure access to education

for all children in the 6-14 age group.

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And arithmetic, the last of the three Rs, still remains a challenge. For example, only 44.1% of

Class 8 students in rural India managed to do a division in 2014, as against 46% in 2013.

“The all India (rural) figures for basic arithmetic have remained virtually unchanged over the last

few years. In 2012, 26.3% of Class 3 children could do a two-digit subtraction. This number is at

25.3% in 2014. For Class 5 children, the ability to do division has increased slightly from 24.8%

in 2012 to 26.1% in 2014,” said the report.

The situation in the ability of school children to comprehend English too seems to be stagnating.

“Children’s ability to read English is relatively unchanged in primary school. In 2014, about 25%

of children enrolled in Class 5 could read simple English sentences. This number is virtually

unchanged since 2009,” the report said.

The situation is worse in middle school. In 2009, 60.2% of children in Class 8 could read simple

sentences in English but in 2014, this figure was 46.8%, the survey said.

Experts said the numbers indicate that India’s school education is in deep crisis and needs

urgent attention. If India wants to reap the so-called demographic dividend, then the school is

where it must focus, experts said.

“How will you reap the demographic dividend when your school children are not learning the

basics?” asked Yamini Aiyar, director of Accountability Initiative, part of think-tank Centre for

Policy Research.

Administrators have talked about IITs, IIMs and skill development but less about what’s

happening inside classrooms in schools, she added. “In the pursuit of excellence, we cannot

leave the basics behind.”

She said the ASER report should influence the centre and states to set specific goals and work

towards it.

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Chavan said the report is, in a way, a summary of what “we have observed over the tenures of

UPA I and II. It is also a baseline for the new government and what it has to deal with.”

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Rukmini Banerjee, director of ASER centre, said that she would like to see the report as a

“glass half full than half-empty”. “Stagnation has happened and we hope the upward mobility will

start soon,” she added.

Banerjee pointed out that some states had done better. In 2014, a higher proportion of Class 5

students in Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu Haryana, Bihar, Odisha and Karnataka could read a

Class 2 level text than in 2013.

The survey also said that the Right to Education Act and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan have

resulted in an improvement in infrastructure in government schools, if not the learning outcome.

It also said that more students are now enrolled in private schools than even before. In 2014,

30.8% of all children between the ages of 6 and 14 were enrolled in private schools. This

number was 29% in 2013 and 16.3% in 2005 when the first ASER report was published.

A human resource development ministry official, who asked not to be named, said that the

government is serious about the learning outcome. In August, the ministry unveiled a new

scheme that emphasizes primary reading, writing and understanding, the official added.

Abhijit Banerjee, a professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author

of Poor Economics, said he is not convinced that the central government gives education its due

priority. It seems to be focusing more on reviving economy first, said Banerjee, who attended

the event that saw the release of the ASER report. More than the centre, the state governments

have a bigger role to play in improving the school education system in India, Banerjee added.

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THE EDUCATION CRISIS

Education is fundamental to an equitable society. An excellent education equips children

and youth with the knowledge, skills, values, and mindsets needed to be empowered

individuals and responsible citizens. The fact that a high-quality education has wide-

ranging benefits for individuals and societies has been demonstrated, time and again, by

countries across the world. With nearly 1 in 4 people below the age of 14 years, India

today stands at an inflection point; where we go from here depends in large part on our

ability to provide equal opportunities for all children to attain an excellent education.

The truth is that today, more than 50% of students in Grade 5 cannot read a Grade 2

text or solve a simple subtraction problem . The truth is that today, the socio-

economic circumstances that a child is born into determines the type of school she

attends, the kinds of co-curricular opportunities that are available to her, the quality of

life outcomes she attains as an adult, and the kinds of opportunities she passes on to

her own children.

The truth is that today, we are failing the majority of our children.

The causes underlying this collective failure are numerous, varied and complex.

Nevertheless, at Teach For India, they believe that at the root of this crisis in education

lies a crisis of leadership. There is a severe deficit of people at all levels of the education

system who are committed to working together to improve the capacity and quality of our

nation’s schools. The fact is that teachers alone cannot solve this crisis; they also need

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excellent school principals to support those teachers, informed parents to stay engaged

with the teaching-learning process in schools, visionary bureaucrats and politicians to

create an environment that enables for principals and teachers to thrive, active civil

society leaders to hold stakeholders accountable, and committed corporate leaders to

mobilize the necessary resources to support school systems.

NGO-Teach for India

Teach For India (TFI) is a non-profit organisation that is a part of the Teach For

All network.Teach For India (TFI), a program of Teach To Lead, aims to address educational

inequity by building a movement of leaders that are committed to expanding educational

opportunity. Launched in 2009 with an inaugural class of 78 Fellows in the cities of Puneand

Mumbai, in its first year TFI worked with approximately 2,800 children. The model currently

operates in 5 cities, and during the 2012-2013 academic year served 16,216 children in 506

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classrooms. By 2016, TFI aspires to reach 6,000 students by placing 2,000 Fellows in 10 cities

across India.

TFI recruits outstanding college graduates and young professionals to serve as fulltime ‘high

performing and impact driven’ class-teachers in under-resourced schools for 2 years. The model

is rooted in a rigorous selection process that evaluates applicants based on qualities including

academic excellence, demonstrated leadership, a commitment to the community, critical

thinking, and perseverance. The program has an acceptance rate of just 7.5 percent. Both

before placement and throughout the two year fellowship each TFI Fellow undergoes a training

program designed to improve their effectiveness and leadership abilities. Through the Teaching

as Leadership framework, Teach For India staff provide training and support to Fellows so that

they can employ innovative teaching strategies to maximize their effectiveness in the

classroom. TFI fellows are placed in 164 partner schools, which include both government

schools and low-income private schools. 

To ensure that fellows have clear leadership opportunities beyond their two year commitment to

teaching, TFI has established partnerships with institutions in a broad range of sectors.

Additionally, TIF has built a strong alumni network, which serves as a valuable resource for

current fellows. Informed by their experiences, alumni work from inside and outside the

educational system as advocates for education reform. Out of 200 Alumni, 54 percent are

currently working in socially relevant fields while 43 percent are involved in the Education

sector.

TFI is a member of the global Teach For All network, which consists of more than 30

independent social enterprises around the world working to expand educational opportunities in

their respective countries.

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Areas in which Teach For India WorksACCESS TO EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION

The early years of a child’s life are critical to her holistic development. With a significant

percentage (9.7%) of India’s population below 5 years of age, there is a massive need

for a policy framework that supports Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE).

However, the reality is far from the vision of integrated ECCE that is needed to give all

children a sound foundation for lifelong learning & development.

While both the National Policy on Education (1986 & 1992) and the RTE (2009) (Sec 11)

recognize the importance of ECCE, the RTE guarantees free and compulsory education

to children only in the age-group of 6-14 years. In fact, although India has one of the

largest welfare schemes for ECCE in the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)

programme, it faces multiple challenges ranging from access to quality. Lack of

monitoring of services delivered by the Anganwadi centres, along with limited training of

workers on nutrition and pre-school education, has resulted in a situation that is

extremely alarming, with a large number of children under 6 missing out on early child

care.

Consequently, a critical need of ECCE is a multi-pronged approach wherein all children

receive high quality care across health, nutrition and education, right from the pre-natal

stage, with greater coherence in service delivery. Important factors in this are the need

for institutions that support & monitor the delivery of ECCE across the spectrum of its

services, along with a teacher force that is adequately trained in Early Childhood

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Education (ECE). Teach For India Alumni in organizations like Hippocampus,

Thermax Foundation, Wunderbar and Pratham are working on different aspects of

this issue.

DEVELOPMENT OF TEACHERS AND SCHOOL PRINCIPALS

As India nears universal enrolment, there is a growing realization that bringing children

into schools doesn’t equate to quality learning. In fact, as the conversation has moved

away from enrolment, there is an active shift towards seeking factors that deliver and

influence quality. At the centre of this conversation is the realization that the quality of an

education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers and principals.

Building capability in teachers has been a major challenge with pre-service and in-

service teacher training falling short of equipping our teachers with the skills and

mindsets required to succeed in a diverse range of classroom and school contexts. In

addition, the country faces a shortage of over 9 lakh teachers and qualified head

teachers who can lead a school. These conditions are exacerbated by a poor culture,

influenced by social perceptions around teaching, which further lessens the motivation of

high quality aspirants from entering the profession. Add to that a low quality education

for teacher aspirants, and we end up with the depressing statistic of 83% failure rate in

the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) in 2015.

In addressing the multi-faceted challenge facing teaching, Teach For India Alumni are

engaged in helping teachers improve their effectiveness every single day by motivating

and training teachers in the early stages of their career to working with experienced

practitioners and helping them learn from each other, and even working with

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headmasters towards holistic development of the school. Through organizations like

iTeach, Leadership Institute for Teachers, TalentSprint, STIR, Firki and India School

Leadership Institute, our Alumni are showing what is possible when we look at teachers

as key partners on the journey of education reform.

DESIGN OF CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENTS

Central to debates on the purpose of education is the issue of what is to be taught and

what is to be assessed. Always a matter of contention, these exhibit what a society

values and wants to hand over to its future generations. However, the challenge with

curriculum and assessments only begins there. Over & above determining what is taught

in schools, standards and content majorly influence the level of engagement of the

student and the teacher in the teaching-learning process.

India created the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) in 2005, as a result of forces

which were set in motion much earlier in the national curriculum-reform movement. While

widely acclaimed as a milestone document, the spirit of it has often been lost in the

translation to textbooks in different states. This results in curricular policies and

practices that, as noted by an SCERT- led review, are “not suitable for children of all

sections of society”, “not local specific”, and “not related to day-to-day life” of the

students and teachers. Indian curriculum has also been shown to be “overambitious” -

content not suited to the pace of children’s learning.

Similar has been the case with the reform movement in the space of assessments with

the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) system. While initially designed to

incentivize ongoing learning of students, with a shift towards application-based learning

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from a focus on rote, lack of training of teachers on the CCE has resulted in a system

that has only increased the burden on students & teachers. Combine this with the lack of

a uniform national large-scale student assessment programme and one encounters a

challenging scenario where there is very little objective information on student learning

outcomes for decision-making at the school or policy level.

With the journey of curriculum and assessments beginning as soon as one enters the

classroom, we see many Fellows continuing to work as Alumni in creating contextualized

curriculum, assessments and frameworks, including for different modes of delivery, and

in training teachers and schools in performing assessment-related tasks, in

organisations such as Educational Initiatives, iDiscoveri, Gray Matters, Leadership

Boulevard, and Bridge International Academies.

COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT

One of the major pain-points in the implementation of programmes to improve school or

teacher quality has been the inability of the system to fix accountability at the last mile.

Specifically, in a system that is as massive as Indian education, the mode of fixing

accountability from the top creates extreme challenges. In such a scenario, empowering

communities at a school-level for governance is critical to the success of the movement

towards quality. Through this, the school becomes the reflection of its community, with

its local set of priorities, values and needs. In addition, the entire community, with its set

of influencers, supports the headmaster, teachers and non-teaching staff in performing

their duties towards improved teaching-learning.

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To this effect, Section 21 of the RTE Act (2009) mandates the formation of School

Management Committees (SMCs) in all government-run or aided schools. SMCs are

responsible for monitoring school functioning and finances, and for creating School

Development Plans (SDPs). With an eye on equitable decision-making, parents or

guardians are supposed to make up 75% of the committee, with proportional

representation for disadvantaged groups and 50% representation by women. However,

high incidence of illiteracy, lack of awareness of rights, roles and responsibilities, and

prevailing power structures often interfere with the proper functioning of SMCs. In fact,

while DISE Data suggests that 91% of schools in India have instituted SMCs, only two-

thirds have received any form of training, and 40% are not even involved in the

preparation of the SDP, much less implement it.

Teach For India Fellows as well as Alumni in organizations like Saajha, AfterTaste,

Akanksha and Indus Action are solving various adaptive challenges related to community

empowerment and harmonizing the power of the collective by rallying and organizing

parents and other community members around school transformation.

INTEGRATION OF TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION

With the spread of the digital revolution and increasing globalization, education systems

across the world are being subject to a variety of forces that are pushing and pulling at it.

While there is an increasing demand to produce knowledge workers who are not only

acquainted with but are adept at technology, the education system is also being pushed

to integrate technology into the classroom in a meaningful way. By Increasing the

effectiveness of the teaching learning process in the classroom, and improving efficiency

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through the proper use of knowledge within the school and broader system, technology

has the potential to bring in radical shifts in the way we educate our children.

With content being tailored to individual needs and with the ability to provide instant

feedback to both students and teachers, technology has the potential to let each child

learn at his or her own pace. Experimenting with different models of blended-learning

can potentially revolutionize the way our children and teachers learn. However, our

system has been slow in leveraging technology in a meaningful way to improve either

efficiency or effectiveness. For instance, In a survey of private schools in Andhra

Pradesh, only 69% were found to have computer labs, out of which 34% of the

computers in labs were found to be ineffective.

Teach For India Alumni are working tirelessly to integrate technology into India’s

classrooms through roles in education-technology organizations like EkStep, Meghshala,

Central Square Foundation, Nalanda, and Zaya, to name just a few.

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The Teach for India modelThe TFI Fellows work across 209 schools in seven cities of India - Mumbai, Pune, New

Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad , Bengaluru and Hyderabad reaching approximately 38,000

students. The organisation's plan is to expand by 2016 to 2000 fellows working across 10 cities

teaching at least 60,000 students. TFI was started in 2008 by a group of activists led

by Shaheen Mistri who wanted to bring about a systemic change in the Indian education sector

by infusing committed teachers into the system. The group met Wendy Kopp, CEO and Founder

of Teach For America (TFA), and following a McKinsey study[, started adapting Teach For

America’sTheory of change in India.

In order to build a growing community of leaders, Teach For India has developed a two-

part theory of change.

FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

Teach For India Fellows commit two years, full-time, to providing their students with the

opportunities that can put them on a different life path. The Fellowship journey is one of

teaching and learning, of working for children while developing your leadership. Our

Fellows are on a mission to end educational inequity for their children, and through this,

they develop a long-term commitment to multiplying that impact as Alumni.

Each Fellow is assigned a classroom in one of Teach For India’s placement cities, and

charged to teach academics, values and mindsets and to give their students the access

and exposure they need to reach their personal, long-term visions. Our framework for

leadership at Teach For India is called the Leadership Development Journey, and is

centered around three commitments:

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The Commitment to Personal Transformation: Exploring who you are, your

purpose, and striving to be a better person.

The Commitment to Collective Action: Building relationships and organizing

partners to multiply and deepen our impact.

The Commitment to Educational Equity: Deepening our understanding of

educational equity and committing to attaining it.

Fellows work on these commitments in and beyond the full-time lab of their classroom,

where they relentlessly focus on moving their students towards “path-changing” learning,

the highest level of our Student Vision Scale.

By growing in the 3 commitments, and embedded with real life leadership experiences in

the classrooms and communities, Fellows are ready to be lifelong learners and leaders

for greater impact on children.

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ALUMNI MOVEMENT

At Teach For India, we envision fostering a networked community of Alumni who are

committed to their role as leaders and movement-builders for the cause of educational

equity in India.

Our hope is to see our Alumni play a key dual role - not just as leaders in their

respective fields and workplaces (be it early-childhood education, vocational education

and teacher-training or research in a school, non-profit, university or corporate) but also

as builders of a movement for educational equity in our country. Our hope is to see them

mobilize resources and organize people towards the cause, to see them inspire men and

women at all levels of the education ecosystem and enable their leadership

development, to see them inform policy debates and influence conversations on

educational equity and to see them innovate and amplify the impact they are having on

children through their work and spread it beyond the walls of their own organizations and

communities.

2011 Alumnus Anoop Parikh decided to return to his low-cost private school in Govandi

to continue teaching post the Fellowship, because he believed that the process of

immersing himself in the community and working with key stakeholders would help him

understand the problems first-hand, enabling him to design solutions for his children.

2009 Alumnus Ashish Shrivastava works as a teacher in a remote tribal area in

Chhattisgarh, a region hit hard by the Naxalite insurgency, where he is trying to develop

a contextualized curriculum that works for children in that region.

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2013 Pune Fellow Jai Mishra worked with his School Management Committee to

mobilize the entire parent community to advocate for free secondary English medium

education for their kids, playing the role of an initiator and a catalyst.

2013 Delhi Fellow Anurag Kundu helped his kids conduct the ASER survey to measure

the learning levels of children across 400 families in their community, Seelampur. The

students presented the state of education in their community to the Head of ASER,

Rukmini Banerji and other government officials.

Our Alumni continue living by the 3 commitments of personal transformation, collective

action and educational equity as they graduate from the Fellowship and our hope is that

they will continue leading our people’s movement for an educated, shining India.

Challenges faced by TFI modelThe TFI model is new to India. But in the case of older partner programs of TFI such as Teach

for America, some people have questioned whether all Fellows come with the same level of

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commitment to the cause. Wendy Kopp, CEO of Teach for All and the founder of Teach For

America, dismissed this suggestion saying "this is the toughest way to boost a resume".

A key challenge for TFI appears to be the education policies in India. India does not

have the equivalent of the "No Child Left Behind" policy enacted in the US under the

Bush administration. The Government of India has now started paying attention to this

issue. On the occasion of India's Teacher's Day on September 5, 2012, the President of

IndiaPranab Mukherjee said that “Qualified and competent teachers, continuously

renewing their capabilities and excellence through research, experimentation and

innovation would be the nation's strength." The government is now planning to launch a

National Mission on Teachers and Training.

Unlike in some other countries where the Teach For All movement works, the Fellows at

Teach for India are not paid by the government or the school they work in. Instead, TFI

itself raises the funds to pay the Fellows. This could have been a challenge to the

scalability of the concept but the organisation has received strong support from

charitable foundations like Reliance Foundation and corporates like JP Morgan,

Thermax and Godrej.

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Initiatives By Teach For India

Maya

In November of 2014, Teach For India staged the Broadway-inspired musical Maya to

over 10,000 people. Maya, however, was created to be much larger than a spectacular

show. It was envisioned to be a symbol of student leadership, and what an excellent

education could look like for all children.

The Maya Musical started as a journey of exploring student leadership. 30 children were

taken on a life-changing quest of self-discovery where they, like Princess Maya in the

story, embarked on a journey of discovering their values and their brightest light. Over

18 months, the Maya children traveled across the country, performed at conferences and

public spaces, practiced their values through acts of kindness and worked on a student-

led project to spread happiness in 100 ways through the arts.

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The Musical was a partnership between Teach For India students and artists on

Broadway. The Musical is an original script, with Broadway composed music. Its

message of potential to all is clear: Find your light, and spread it to the world.

After the Musical, we launched Maya 2.0, taking learnings from the Maya Musical and

spreading it to more children. Today, six of our cities have groups of Maya children

experimenting with the Maya practices, each adapting and building on the original Maya

journey. Maya 2.0 includes a group of children in Hyderabad who are performing street

theatre and a group of Maya Chennai children who are staging their own Maya

Production. The original Maya Musical children continue on the next leg of their journey,

learning what it means to lead change and spread their light.

Beyond Teach For India, Maya offers free tools for any child to use - an online Maya

book, a simplified Maya script, the Find Your Light journey, the Maya documentary and a

Maya Cineplay that will release shortly.

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inspirED

inspirED is an educational conference that aims to bring together people with varied

backgrounds with a common goal to end educational inequity. Our participants range

from students, school teachers, school leaders, headmasters, teacher trainers,

entrepreneurs and government officials to corporate CSR heads and others. We believe

that it is possible for all children in our country to attain an excellent education if citizens

from across sectors come together to create solutions, and hence seek diversity in our

participants for different perspectives, ideas and solutions.

The conferences aim to bring awareness and deeper understanding of the educational

landscape in India and the urgency of the crisis of educational inequity. They provide a

platform to connect people, spark ideas and start dialogues around common problems.

Sessions on best practices in the classroom, school and system push conversations on

what an excellent education for all children looks like and how we can get there together.

The conference hosts a student-led education exhibition that showcases student

leadership and provides inspiration and a sense of possibility to our participants.

Every year, the two-day conference takes place in different cities including Delhi, Pune,

Mumbai, and Hyderabad. The ideas and solutions sparked through the conferences

address challenges faced both by the city and the country. Our most recent conference,

in January 2016, took the form of an Innovation Jam in Pune, where participants solved

for the question: How do we ensure high-school students in Pune attain the knowledge,

skills and mindsets necessary for the 21st century?.

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Speakers at the conference range from politicians and policy makers to school leaders

and teachers and experts in various fields of education. The sessions run along three

pathways: the classroom (techniques and tips for best practices in classroom teaching),

the school (tools and strategies to transforms schools) and the system (discussions

around government policy, social entrepreneurship and systemic change at a macro

level).

Our hope is that the conference is a launching pad for several collaborative partnerships

and solutions in education, following which participants continue working with each other

in the future.

Firki

Firki is a world-class, open-source blended learning programme for teachers across

India to access, use and transform their teaching practice.

Firki focuses on the principles and strategies that have proved to be successful in

improving teacher competencies in low-resource communities. Firki helps a teacher

identify his or her strengths and leverage them to build effective practice leading to

improved student outcomes. The bi-lingual content (English and Hindi) is presented

through engaging videos, modeling strategies, teacher interviews and student videos to

capture all aspects relevant to transforming teaching practice. As of now, Firki has over

3000 users who are teachers, teacher-trainers, non-profit facilitators and school leaders.

The online portion of Firki, which anchors the whole model, includes coursework and

online training, and is 10% of an educator’s learning time. The portal currently has 8

online courses: Investment, Classroom Practice, Goal Setting, Planning and Preparation,

Personal Development, Basic English, Basic Math and a Vision of Excellence. Once an

educator has taken a course, they have the ability to directly apply it within their

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classrooms - where 70% of their learning happens - through full-time teaching practice.

Educators sign up with others from their school, enabling the remaining 20% of their

learning to happen through coaching, mentoring and communities of practice.

Firki, in partnership with master teachers, pedagogy experts and teacher education

programmes, aspires to be the most effective and accessible route to a high-quality

alternative certification for teaching in India.

Together, Firki and its partners will build advocacy around the importance of investing in

the professional development of teachers and the need for collective social impact in the

area of teacher education and support.

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Circles of Impact

Teach For India currently has 2000 Fellows teaching in 329 schools across Mumbai and Pune.

They impact a total of 37,920 children across 884 classrooms. Their impact is not confined to

the classroom alone. All 2ndyear Fellows have to implement a community project whose aim is

to identify barriers to student achievement and conceiving solutions to remove these barriers.

As a part of their community project, Fellows have teacher-training programs in their school,

launched adult-literacy drives near their community and started ventures involving women

entrepreneurs in the community.

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IMMEDIATE IMPACT

Student impactTeach for India’s goal for the students is to put every child that we work with on a

different life path. They measure their impact as progress to this goal on three levels -

academic growth, values and mindset, and exposure and access .

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Central to all their impact is leadership. They aim to develop student leaders who show

transformational change both in themselves and in their classroom, school, and

community.

ACADEMIC IMPACT

STUDENT VISION SCALE

The Student Vision Scale is the measure of how classrooms are doing on academic

achievement, exposure and access, and values and mindsets. Their Program

Managers have rated our classrooms a 3 out of 5 on our Student Vision Scale. This

implies that students are beginning to explore themselves, the world around them,

the values they operate with and basic learning is happening in the classroom.

Students are also able to demonstrate class values, and start to think about how they

want to contribute to their community. Students who have already reached a 5 are

passionate and joyful, and can evaluate and create challenging content. They are

able to independently demonstrate class values, both in and out of class, and are

able to leverage opportunities in the community and world around them.

LONGITUDINAL STUDY

The Longitudinal Study is a comparative study of Teach For India and non-Teach For

India classrooms over time, done in collaboration with Columbia University. Each

year, Teach For India classrooms have made more than double the growth of non-

Teach For India classrooms in the control group.

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MATH

Our students are learning to recall and apply knowledge and skills appropriate to

their level. This has led to a 48% grade level mastery on math at the end of the year

versus 20% in the beginning of the year in 2015.

READING COMPREHENSION

On average, Teach For India students show a 1.1 year of growth in reading level in

2015, which means they have achieved over a full year of reading ability. This is

especially important as many students are below grade level at the time of Teach For

India intervention, and our Fellows need to accelerate their learning in order for them

to be at par with peers of the same grade.

VALUE AND MINDSETS

They believe that an excellent education is a balance of academics and character

development through strengthening values and mindsets. Their Program Managers have

rated 88% of their Fellows as teaching students to demonstrate values on the student

vision scale.

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They have seen strong examples of value-driven learning in classrooms through Design

For Change (www.dfcworld.org), Maya, Carpe Diem and others.

Design For Change is a global challenge that encourages children to use design thinking

to solve a problem they care about. Teach For India students have consistently reached

the top ten list of global Design For Change projects.

The Maya Find Your Light Track enables children to ask and answer big life questions as

part of a journey of understanding themselves better. Maya has also identified and

documented the practices (the sharing circle, living the values of compassion, courage

and wisdom and others) that we believe have led to impact. Maya students were found to

perform twice as well academically as other Teach For India students. Three of Teach

For India Maya students got full scholarships to the United World Colleges in Italy,

Armenia and India and another two study at Avsara’s Leadership Academy now.

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EXPOSURE AND ACCESS

Exposure and access for Teach For India students is providing them with a wide range of

opportunities that will help them to both understand themselves better, as well as their

purpose and the contribution they wish to make to the world.

On the student vision scale, Teach For India ‘s Program Managers have rated 60% of

Teach For India classrooms as having evidence in building students’ awareness of

strengths and goals, and exposing them to opportunities through projects and

experiences outside the classroom.

Each year, Teach For India students participate in the Model United Nations, and have

continued this year on year. Teach For India students have also participated and been

awarded at various Olympiads and other competitions. They participate in extra-

curricular fests, do slam poetry, and go on residential leadership camps. They take part

in Just For Kicks, an Alumni-run football project, and have facilitated Teach For All

educational conferences. This year one of our students, Priyanka, was invited to lead a

session on Student Leadership at Teach For America’s 25 year Anniversary.

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FELLOW IMPACTIn addition to direct impact on our children, Teach For India’s long-term theory is to

develop leaders who will continue fighting towards educational equity. The impact of the

Fellowship on developing Fellows is measured through their growth on the three

commitments of Personal Transformation, Collective Action, and the Commitment to

Educational Equity.

COMMITMENT TO PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION

Personal transformation is the journey of getting closer to being the person you want to

be. Watch THIS video to get a glimpse of leadership and transformation in our

classrooms.

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COMMITMENT TO COLLECTIVE ACTION

Through their “Be The Change Projects” in the second year of teaching, Fellows show us

the power of collective action as they engage with the community and larger eco-system

around them to affect change. Projects include building school management, parent

employment empowerment, and active community engagement. Watch  THIS video to

see how one of our Fellows encouraged all parents in his school to become actively

involved in their children’s education.

THE COMMITMENT TO EDUCATIONAL EQUITY

The commitment to educational equity involves deepening our understanding of the

ground realities of inequity and committing to solve it. The classroom becomes a

platform for learning about the educational landscape in our country and the challenges

that come with it.

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Reported ResultsAssessment Performance: 

(February 2014)

Standardized Assessment Performance - Literacy | Classroom Impact: upon entering

schools most students in partner schools are 2-4 years behind their current grade level; TFI

aims is to bridge that gap. In 2011-2012 academic year students in TFI classrooms achieved an

average of:

38% classrooms achieved 1-1.5 year growth in English.

37% classrooms achieved >1.5 year growth in English.

Standardized Assessment Performance - Numeracy | In 2011-2012 academic year students

in TFI classrooms achieved an average of:

55% classrooms achieved 1-1.5 year growth in Math.

17% classrooms achieved >1.5 year growth in Math.

In 2012-13, Teach For India initiated a longitudinal study in collaboration with Columbia

University and Educational Initiatives. In conducting a 'longitudinal' study, TFI is ommitting to

track and measure how its students are growing over an extended period of time (July 2012 to

March 2016).

TFI analyzed impact using a quasi-experimental ‘Difference in Differences’ study design, which

compares gain in test scores of students in Teach For India classrooms (Treatment Group) with

that of students in comparable non-Teach For India classrooms (Control Group). [Gain =

Difference in scores between 2 tests (July 2013 vs. February 2014)]. The results from the

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second year of the study are positive and establish that the percentage gain of Treatment Group

is almost twice as high as the percentage gain Control Group of students.

Ability to reach the poor: Teach For India works in 6 Indian cities, in government or low-

income private schools. TFI believes that in these under-served communities, where there is a

high rate of teacher absenteeism, and a lack of exposure to varied jobs and career pathways,

Fellows can make the most impact. Many of the parents of TFI students are manual laborers,

school drop-outs, or unemployed. The Teach For India Fellowship enables children from under-

privileged communities to be exposed to different methods of learning, values, and mindsets.

The medium of instruction for Teach For India Fellows is English, which helps students to

become better prepared for employment in the future. 

User satisfaction: (December 2012). From the surveys TFI conducts with school Head Masters

and Principals:

97% of principals agree that "Teach for India Fellows are respectful to students and parents and

interact with them in a positive way."

91% of principals would “Recommend allotting Fellows to their school next year to the

authorities."

98% of principals think that Fellows use “Innovative ways of teaching that makes lessons more

interesting for students.”

92% of principals would “Recommend Fellow’s teaching methods to other teachers.”

92% of principals are “Satisfied with Teach For India Fellows working in their school.”

Cost effectiveness/value for money: The Fellowship is cost effective because despite the

extensive and quality training of the Fellows at the Institute, the Fellows receive a relatively

small stipend compared to teachers in high income private schools and prestigious government

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schools across India. The caliber of the Fellows is extremely high, as Teach For India recruits

only the best college graduates and young professionals. 

Other Indian NGOs Working Toward Education EqualityMany NGOs in India are doing a great job in helping out the underprivileged kids with education and

to bring about a social change. Indian NGOs other than Teach for India which are doing their best in

providing education equality:

1. Make A Difference (MAD): Along with education partner, Cambridge University Press, Make A

Difference or MAD has initiated a unique project ‘The English Project’ to educate children from poor

homes, orphanages and street shelters with English. Currently, some 1200 volunteers are working

hard to teach 4000 children in some of the major cities of India including Mangalore, Chennai,

Bangalore, Mysore, Delhi, Dehradun, Kolkata, Vellore, etc. A winner of the prestigious Ashoka

Staples Youth Social Entrepreneur Competition in the year 2008 and also a Noble Laureate of the

Karamveer Purashkar awarded by ICongo, global fellow of YouthActionNet and Cordes Fellow

2010, MAD also runs a Placements project running that aims to place underprivileged children on

the same platform with the children from regular homes.

http://www.makeadiff.in/

3. Pratham: Established in the year 1994, Pratham is dedicated to provide education to children

belonging to the slums of Mumbai. Team Pratham comprises of civil servants, PhDs, social workers,

educationists and many other educated personnel who are working for a common dream of

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developing the future of children of the country. With an aim to offer every child their fundamental

right to education, Pratham has slowly grown into a larger organisation covering 19 states of India.

http://www.pratham.org/

4. Barefoot College-India: An entire campus that runs on solar power. Yes, that’s Barefoot College

that was originally started by two friends Meghraj and Sanjit ‘Bunker’ Roy and who wanted to

establish college for the rural population of India and was established in 1972. Today, the

organisation trains local community people into teachers, specialized professionals in other fields

and has initiated many educational efforts for children. The organisation has also been ranked as

the second best educational NGO in the year 2013 by The Global Journal.

http://www.barefootcollege.org

5. Cry: ‘Child rights and you’ or CRY is an NGO in India working for children and their rights. CRY

has undertaken a lot of initiatives to improve the condition of underprivileged children and one of

them is the ‘Chotte Kadam-Pragati ki Aur’, a literacy drive that has reached out to more than 35000

children in 10 states of India. ‘Mission Education’ is another very popular campaign from CRY to

make sure that ‘education is every child’s right’ and that proper education reaches to more children

in every new academic year.

http://www.cry.org

     

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Bibliography http://www.giveindia.org/

http://www.educationinnovations.org/program/teach-india

http://www.teachforindia.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org

http://www.teacherplus.org/cover-story/thinking-about-teach-for-india

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/ZNRkJBrnB4NG9bJzLx5IaO/India-disappoints-in-

educational-outcome-test.html

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