Battling Educational Inequity – Teach For India
Eshwar grew up in a small town 90 kilometres outside of Bangalore. The son of a farmer, he was the first in his family to graduate and attend college. His parents were ecstatic and hopeful. He spent the next six years of his life at IBM, getting promoted along the way. The newfound security enabled him and his family to take risks that were once unthinkable.
After a few years, though, Eshwar began questioning his surroundings. He knew that his time at IBM, while intellectually fulfilling and financially secure, was incomplete. A few months later, without telling any of his friends or family, Eshwar resigned and applied to Teach For India. At Teach For India, he would be making a small fraction of his IBM salary. Eshwar spent the next two years teaching in one of Hyderabad’s low-income government schools.
Today, five years later, Eshwar runs an organization called InquiLab. Their mission is to transform India’s schools into havens that will promote innovation. They serve 3,500 low-income children across the city of Hyderabad. Throughout his Fellowship, every month, Eshwar sent 50% of his salary back home to his parents. Like Eshwar, thousands of human stories underlie a national crisis we see—and yet don’t see—every single day: the state of Indian education.
Battling the injustices of poverty and educational inequity are 4000 bright, talented and unlikely leaders from Teach For India, a two-year Fellowship program that places young people as full-time teachers in government classrooms across the country. Their actions strive to tackle a tragically broken social contract and reform a failing education system. You too can choose to cultivate a fresh set of knowledge, mindsets and capabilities to foster the endless potential of our children, languishing their light in the nation’s most under-resourced schools. Are you ready to be the change?
To learn more about Teach For India, visit www.teachforindia.org
Apply to the Fellowship at www.teachforindia.org/become-fellow
