Teach For India

Teach For India (TFI) is a non-profit founded by Shaheen Mistri in 2009. It is a part of the Teach For All network. Teach For India runs a two-year Fellowship and supports an Alumni movement. The Fellowship recruits college graduates and working professionals to serve as full-time teachers in low-income schools for two years. The mission of Teach For India is “one day all children will attain an excellent education.”
History.
In 2006, the founder of Teach For India Shaheen Mistri, 17 years after starting the Akanksha Foundation felt compelled to address the issue of educational inequity at a larger scale. She believed that the solution was a people's movement that needed to come in unison to provide every Indian child with an outstanding education.
In 2007, Shaheen Mistri met with Wendy Kopp, the Founder of Teach For America, and the ideation process to keep ‘leadership’ at the core was ignited.
In 2009, Teach For India welcomed the first cohort, the Class of 2009, to the Fellowship. The 87 ‘Niners’ formed the beginning of a nationwide movement of diverse leaders.
In 2011, two years later, the Niners graduated from the Fellowship and became the first cohort in Teach For India's Alumni movement. The first cohort of Alumni then went on to work in several pathways such as teaching, teacher training, school leadership, and government policy solving the complex problem of educational equity.
Today, Teach For India has 900 Fellows working relentlessly to change the lives of Students in their classrooms and have become leaders driving change. Now, the organization has over 3400 Alumni who are collectively fuelling the larger movement towards their vision.
Geographical Reach.
Mumbai.
In the year 2009, the first cohort of the Teach For India Fellowship began in Mumbai and Pune with 87 Fellows. In 2011, they graduated with 46 Fellows and 1122 Students.
In the year 2015, The Alumni movement grew bigger. The city of Mumbai started to steadily grow its Alumni network from 43 Alumni in 2011 to 280 in 2015. ‘321’ was Mumbai's first Alumni led organization.
In the year 2020, Teach For India Mumbai collaborated with MCGM. Teach For India's partnership with the government evolved over the years from being a mere service provider to reaching out to Teach for India for advice and collaborating on projects like training MCGM staff, Student Advisory Council, and best practice sharing.
The recent numbers for 2021 shows that 144 Fellows, 3500 Students, and 860 Alumni members are in the city of Mumbai.
Pune.
In 2009, the first cohort began in Pune with 87 Fellows. In the year 2011, Pune's first cohort graduated with 32 Fellows and 1100 Students.
In 2018, Pune received Secondary Education Access to English-medium secondary classrooms, which was a huge challenge for Pune's kids. This issue was addressed through the PPP model partnerships with Aakanksha Foundation and iTeach Schools.
The recent numbers indicates that Pune has 145 Fellows, 6500 Students, and 840 Alumni members.
Ahmedabad.
In the year 2014, Teach For India reached Ahmedabad and had its first cohort with 34 Fellows and 1,100 Students. The Samait Shala was founded by a 2014 Ahmedabad Fellow, Kushal Dattani. The organization, Samait Shala trains teachers directly to ensure that classrooms are inclusive of students who learn in different ways and at different paces.
In 2016, they started operations in 20 schools in Ahmedabad with 80 Fellows and 2,000 Students. The elementary Students in the state were known to outperform on every single metric when it came to the mastery of basic operations and reading. Teach For India was above the state and city averages for both the learning techniques.
The recent data for 2021 have indicated 47 Fellows, 1800 Students, and 230 Alumni members in Ahmedabad.
Bengaluru.
In the year 2015, Teach For India had its first cohort with 57 Fellows and 2,182 Students in Bengaluru.
In 2016, The community centers emerged. To solve contextual challenges, Fellows across the city set up community centers to facilitate additional learning time and Student-run community interventions.
The recent data for 2021 have indicated 120 Fellows, 3500 Students, and 270 Alumni members in Bengaluru.
Chennai.
In 2012 Teach For India had its first cohort with 32 Fellows and 660 Students in Chennai.
In 2017, Teach For India focused on Student leadership opportunities in Chennai. Students visited NASA, participated in Young Entrepreneurs Academy and TEDx.
In 2018, Teach For India partnered up with the government of Tamil Nadu. The Alumni worked as consultants for the Tamil Nadu Education Department to develop the state Education Information Management System and Digital Content Platforms for all teachers and students in the state.
The recent numbers for 2021 show that there are 110 Fellows, 3600 Students, and 370 Alumni members in Chennai.
Delhi.
In 2011, Teach For India had its first cohort in Delhi with 65 Fellows and 2000 students.
In the year 2016, 1000+ student leaders started driving change in the city. A Student leader Jyoti started project Gurukul inviting Students to conduct workshops in art and spoken word poetry for other students, hoping to build respect for arts and artists in the community.
By the year 2017, 30+ Delhi organizations were founded by Teach For India Alumni in the sectors of early childhood education and parent empowerment.
The recent numbers for 2021 have indicated 260 Fellows, 9000 Students, and 880 Alumni members in Delhi. Delhi is Teach For India's biggest regional operation.
Hyderabad.
In 2012, Teach For India had its first cohort in the city of Hyderabad with 46 Fellows and 1800 Students.
In the years between 2014 and 2015, the Fellow Durbar was inaugurated. The Fellow Durbar initiative is an organic space for people to come together and share their experiences and is now an integral part of Teach For India's ecosystem across 7 cities.
The recent numbers for 2021 have indicated 87 Fellows, 3250 Students, and 430 Alumni members in Hyderabad.
Teach For India Model.
Teach For India has a short term theory of change and a long term theory of change. In the short term, Teach For India follows a two-year Fellowship model. Their Fellows’ through the course of two years of teaching and working with key education stakeholders, are exposed to the realities of India's education system. The Fellows, in these years, cultivate the knowledge, skills, and mindsets required to achieve positions of leadership in and beyond education. In the long term theory of change, Fellows who graduate from the Fellowship join the Alumni movement.
The model for the Fellowship starts with a selective recruitment and selection process, followed by an ongoing teacher training and leadership development, after which Teach For India measures the impact of Students and the leadership growth of Fellows.
Each Fellow is assigned a classroom in one of Teach For India's placement cities to teach academics, values, mindsets and to give Students the access and exposure they require to reach their personal, long-term visions. Post-Fellowship, they join the Alumni movement that's working across various pathways for a more equitable India.
The long-term vision for Teach For India’s Fellows.
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 classroom and communities, Fellows are ready to be lifelong learners and leaders for greater impact on children.
In the next stage, Fellows either start their organizations or hold key positions of leadership, both within and beyond the education sector.
The Impact.
Teach For India in a decade has seen more than 120,000 young people applying to the Fellowship Program. Currently, the non-profit organization has 900+ Fellows impacting over 3,2000 students in 260 under-resourced schools in India. They have 5,200 Student Alumni. Since Teach For India's inception, they have infused the system with more than 3,400+ Alumni who are running their own schools, organizations, training teachers, designing policy, and continuing to serve within classrooms, non-profits, and corporate institutions.
The Teach For India Alumni is serving more than 33 million children; 1 in 10 Indian children is now reached by a Teach For India Alumni. More than 77% of their Alumni continue to serve in the social sector. A recent study shows that Teach For India's community has founded more than 150+ organizations.
Teach For India has built a national focus on repairing India's educational crisis through their Innovation Cell programs that equip teachers, students, and entrepreneurs to spark long-term change in education. Through social and print media- Teach For India has garnered the support of thousands of people from a wide range of sectors, all of whom are invested in the vision of an excellent education for all children.
Academic Impact.
Teach For India has graduated 3 cohorts of 5,200 students from 10th grade in Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi till 2019 with a graduation rate that is consistently better than the Government schools’ average. Their 4th cohort graduated in 2020 with a passing rate of 94-98% across these three cities Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi.
Math.
Teach For India's students are learning to recall, apply knowledge and skills appropriate to their level. This has led to 36% grade-level mastery of Math at the end of the year versus 20% at the beginning of the year in 2018–19.
Reading Comprehension.
Teach For India students showed a record of 0.6 years of growth in their reading level in 2018–19, achieving a higher level of reading.