Teach for India

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Contents

INTRODUCTION        [pic 7]

 EDUCATION IN INDIA .................................3

CSR activities in India        4

TEACH FOR INDIA-ABOUT        5

HISTORY        7

VISION AND MISSION        7

TFI’S GOAL 2015-16        7

TFI-CURRENT SCENARIO        7

Teach For All        8

DISTANCE EDUCATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE        10

ADVANTAGES OF MOOC        1

LIMITATIONS OF MOOC        2

MOOCS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD        3

FINAL WORD        4

EXHIBITS        

EXHIBIT 1A        i

EXHIBIT 1B        

EXHIBIT 2        

EXHIBIT 3        

Exhibit 4        

Exhibit 5        

Exhibit 6 ..........................................................v

REFERENCES        

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INTRODUCTION

Sachin Paranjpe, the Chief Program Officer of Teach for India is sitting in his sea facing office looking through the window. The atmosphere in his office is serene, but an intense storm is raging in his mind. It is 23rd August 2014 and Sachin is reflecting over the issues at hand which he is going to highlight to Mrs Shaheen Mistry, CEO of the Teach for India during the presentation that afternoon.

It has been 5 years since the inception of Teach for India but the reach of the program has been limited to the municipal schools in big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore. The program has not yet been able to reach the rural areas of India where quality education is most lacking. The impact of the Teach for India program will be realized the most when it is able to reach the rural areas.

Mr Sachin Paranjpe was going to present the future expansion plans to the CEO. He had lofty aims for Teach for India of catering to more and more children who are denied education due to their economic condition or lack of development in their vicinity. The company had to shift focus towards rural areas while maintaining the same quality of education provided in city municipal schools. The problem at hand was to go ahead with the expansion plans under such constraints. Further, they also had to decide upon the sources of funding to support the expansion plans. As told by Mrs Shaheen Mistry herself:[pic 9]

“As Teach For India expands to more cities and recruits a large number of Fellows, funding becomes a challenge. While Teach For America corps members receive their compensation directly from the schools they are placed in, Teach For India Fellows are paid by Teach for India. The Funding required for Teach for India when it places 2000 Fellows in schools will be over Rs. 100 crores a year. The second challenge is to maintain a balance between scaling the movement quickly and continuing to maintain the highest levels of quality and impact.”[16]

Sachin was not very sure whether expanding in rural areas would be the correct step for TFI. Besides, if they were to expand into the rural areas he was not sure whether TFI should stick to its present model of providing teaching services in the form of fellows to the existing schools or whether to shift to a model which involved recent technological advancements like MOOCs (explained later in the case). He saw four options for funding the expansion but was not sure which would be more suitable for TFI. The four options were:

1. Sticking to the present sources of funding like grants and donations and try to increase their earnings from these sources by reaching out to corporate and institutions.
2. Earning through advertisements: Advertising FMCG products in schools in collaboration with various firms and get paid instead.
3. Government funding: As in Teach for America model where the school pays the Teach for America fellows, negotiating with the government to pay the fellows. This can be achieved by advising the government to rely on TFI fellows rather than recruiting teachers since TFI provides the best quality of teachers.
4. Corporate Adoption: Encouraging corporate to adopt certain villages and to invest in education through TFI. This is similar donation but is more concentrated in nature.

EDUCATION IN INDIA

Structure of Schools (Refer Exhibit 6)

There are large number of schools funded and operated by various agencies of the government including central and state government and local or municipal bodies. There are also many private schools. Aided schools have to follow a set of rules and regulations similar to government schools. The major difference is that they are managed by private entities which could be a trust, and tend to charge higher fees because of which the incentives for quality education are somewhat better. Non-aided private schools are not regulated by the majority of such regulations. The private registered schools include those affiliated to religious bodies, run by missionaries of different religions and denominations, trusts of charitable organizations, and those run by individuals on a non-profit basis. There are also a large number of informal or unregistered schools which receive no public funding and completely unregulated. Private schools run explicitly for profit are largely absent among the registered schools. TFI fellows visit mostly schools run by local and municipal bodies.

RTE and its implementation

RTE provides for free and compulsory education to all children up to the age of 14 years. RTE provides an important role to the community. The School Management Committee (SMC), consisting of a majority of parents and headed by one of them, is to monitor the working of the school, including its finances. 99 per cent of India’s rural population has a primary school within a one kilometre radius. Eleven million more children are now enrolled in elementary schools from 2009-10 to 2011-12. Another important RTE goal is to empower teachers in schools, ensuring their competence as professionals able to reflect on and improve their own practice. Schools need to ensure an acceptable Pupil-Teacher Ratio and RTE mandates that all teachers are professionally trained and supported to continuously assess and improve children’s learning.