Guest post by Teach for India, which is looking for fellows. Further details below:

Teach For India (TFI) is a nation-wide movement started by Ms. Shaheen Mistri, founder of Akanksha Foundation and a Global Leader Fellow, in the year 2008. The TFI Fellowship programme, is a movement of outstanding college graduates and young professionals who will commit two-years to teach full-time in under resourced schools and who will become lifelong leaders working from within various sectors toward the pursuit of equity in education. TFI is modelled on the lines of the very successful Teach For America Program that was started more than 20 years ago by a 21 year-old Princeton graduate, Wendy Kopp, who played a major role in mentoring the initiation of Teach For India.

The Fellows go through a rigorous selection process where they are evaluated for academic excellence, demonstrated leadership, a commitment to the community, critical thinking and perseverance, amongst other qualities. The Fellowship is a 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. The Fellowship programme is 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 toward a shared vision, create and adjust plans to move further towards their goals.

In 2009, Teach For India had 87 Fellows teaching in 35 schools across Mumbai and Pune. In its second year (2010), 137 Fellows joined the movement and began teaching in 65 schools across Mumbai in Pune. In 2011, Teach For India added Delhi to its list of placement cities and selected 250 Fellows to teach in 130 schools across Mumbai, Pune and Delhi. Today, Teach For India Fellows are teaching approximately 11,000 children in these three cities. For 2012, Fellows will be placed to teach in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad, aiming to impact 65,000 children. Teach For India Fellows make a very diverse group of people, brought together by their past achievements and invaluable experience. 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 National Law School of India University, IITs, IIMs, St.Stephen's, St.Xavier's, Christ University, Presidency College etc and companies such as Accenture, McKinsey, Mahindra & Mahindra, IBM, Ernst & Young, Schlumberger and so on. TFI will work relentlessly to ensure that all Fellows have the knowledge and skills necessary to lead their students towards achievement. The organization recently won the award for the best non-profit to work for in the Economic Times Great Places to Work Survey 2011.

The Fellowship begins with a five-week training Institute in Pune in May or June 2012 that helps Fellows understand curriculum, create long-term 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.

The Fellowship has four deadlines: 31^st July 2011, 16^th October 2011, 11^th December 2011 and 22^nd January 2012 for application. Teach For India encourages final year students interested in the Fellowship to apply for the same within the applicable deadlines above-mentioned. The application process involves the submission of an application form online and TFI does not accept hard copies of the application form. Please do visit www.teachforindia.org for more information. Contact Ms. Anakana Sheth at for queries.