Teach For India Fellowship: The Movement For An India Filled With Love And Compassion

 Mumbai  – Teach For India Fellowship is a nationwide movement that aims to eliminate educational inequity. And we believe the best way to do that is by cultivating a movement of leaders who will ensure an excellent and equitable education for all children, which will ultimately bring a social shift for an India filled with love and compassion.

The Teach For India Fellowship is a promising avenue for India’s youth and working professionals to bring equity in education by serving as full-time teachers to children from low-income communities in under-resourced schools.

“What I find very attractive about Teach For India Fellowship is that it has the potential to change the educational inequity in India, and it has the potential to make leaders out of the Fellows who can not only get into a good position at work or join a university of their choice but transform their lives” – Arnavaz Aga (Anu Aga), Founder Trustee – Teach For India.

Present in 8 cities (Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata), selected Fellows are placed as full-time teachers, for 2 years, in government or low-income private schools where they teach English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies across Grades 1 to 10.

Nisaba Godrej, Chairperson and Trustee, Teach For India shared her powerful message on the Fellowship – “One sense that I always get being around a Fellow or Alumni is that this is what goodness and inspiration in the world looks like. And after being around them, I feel that anything is possible.”

As a Fellow, you will receive –

• An opportunity to make a difference in a classroom from day one
• Support as you apply, train and teach through your Fellowship
• Exposure to a network of leaders from across sectors
• A chance to visit the external careers fair as you graduate from the Fellowship
• Develop employable skills
• Join a community of 4000+ Alum, 77% of whom work directly with underserved communities
• Access to a global network of 60+ Teach For All partner organizations
• Be a part of Teach For India an organisation that has consistently been amongst the top ten places to work in the Great Places to Work Survey.

Commenting on the Fellowship, Eshwar Bandi, Co-Founder and Director of Inqui-Lab Foundation and a Teach For India Fellow (Hyderabad, 2014-16) – “We need to care for our children and nurture them and enable them to build a better world than the one we are currently letting them inherit. Considering the societal effects of the pandemic, there is no better time to start your Fellowship than right now.”

 

Ankita Nawalakha, Founder – School of Citizens and Teach For India alumna (Delhi, 2015-17) added to her reason for becoming a Fellowship – “Because teaching is the closest thing to changing someone’s life. I teach because it empowers. I teach because it matters. I teach because it is strength. I teach because to teach means to love”.

Be a part of the movement of leaders by joining the Teach For India fellowship and ensuring that every child lives in an India free of poverty and filled with love.

Source: indiaeducationdiary, 19/01/22

A staggering crisis of education confronts the country

 We went from one ruin to another. One, magnificent and resonant with the wonder that it once was. A centre of learning with over 10,000 students, 1,500 years ago. The other, a centre of learning today, with 300 students. The classrooms surrounded by rubble, overgrown with thorny bushes. Locked up for most of the past 21 months because of the pandemic. The one room that was clear of bushes and rubble was being used as a vaccination centre. That is what I had gone to see. But in the fading light of the winter evening, it was three boys playing cricket near the boundary wall that captured my attention.

I asked for the bat; I do this often in the many cricket games that I encounter in the villages and kasbas that I visit, and have never been refused. We talked as we played. “Which classes are you in?" Fifth, 6th and 7th. In three different schools. “So, you were in 3rd when the schools shut, and you were in 4th; what do you remember from those classes?" Two of the children just smiled. “Do you understand the material you are being taught in the current class?" The two kept smiling. “Darrte ho kyaa, bolte kyon nahin?" Are you afraid, why don’t you speak? I asked. The conversation was all in Hindi in that ‘interior village’.

“We must have the courage to speak the truth. Always," the eldest said. “We are not able to understand anything in class, sir. We have lost almost 2 years of school." He said it exactly like this, in English. The boy’s firm, clear voice and his conviction and language were incongruous with the ruins we stood amid; the ruins, an apt metaphor for the state of much around in that part of the country.

The child’s simple principle of truth is hard to live by. But let’s try, if only momentarily, at the beginning of 2022. Not for everything, or even where it is perhaps needed more, but only for education.

Our education system is a mess. Children are not learning what they should. And there are deep inequities of access, resources and outcomes—often rooted in geographic, social and economic disadvantages.

Learning in India lags on every dimension of capacities and values that we want education to develop: Basic literacy and math, any real understanding of the subjects, deeper capacities such as critical thinking and creativity, core human values, and more. Higher education, unfortunately, is in even worse shape than school education.

So, our education system is failing in all its roles. Inadequate in helping develop the individual for a good life. Inadequate in its contribution to a changing society, which must become more equitable, humane and just. Inadequate as the foundation of a constitutional republic.

Without doubt, there have been improvements in the past decades: on access, on enrolment, on equity, and more. But we will short-change the potential of our nation and perpetuate injustice on hundreds of millions if we take this progress to be enough. Our nation’s children, our nation’s future, deserve much better.

The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP) is a comprehensive road-map for improving Indian education. I suspect that those who oppose it most vehemently have not read it. I run into many such individuals. Or, do so only because it has been developed by the current Union government. Constructive critiques would help the NEP’s implementation. This is really the key now—and will require sustained effort, with the states and the Union acting in tandem for the next 10 years.

The messy reality of our politics, governance and culture will present obstacles to the NEP’s implementation. Inspired leadership within state institutions and citizen engagement can help. There is a tumultuous path ahead. But given where we are today, the best chance that education has would be in the NEP’s implementation in its true spirit.

We must not forget the lessons of the past 15 years. The abject failure of three things that were touted as solutions to India’s (and others’) education problems must be put in the corner they belong. Proliferation of private schools does not help; they do not provide better education than public schools. The massive increase in private-school enrolment in the past 15 years in India has not improved Indian education a wee bit. Technology is not effective in the core process of teaching-learning; imagining that it will cure the ills of education is delusional. The covid pandemic has hammered this point home tragically. Testing and then more testing doesn’t help; that is like measuring someone’s temperature repeatedly in the hope that it will cure a fever, and when it does not, punishing the person for not getting cured.

A staggering crisis in education confronts us today, one that is unprecedented in India’s education history. Over 200 million children have lost two years of learning and more. If the states—which run our schools—do not address this adequately, as they must, we will have a learning-lost generation.

In those ruins in the nowhere of India, that most incongruous of theatres for a performance of moral clarity, I asked the child, “How, where did you learn all this?" “My teacher, sir," he said. “He says that we must learn everything, including English, and even more importantly must become a good Indian. Even when the school has been shut, he has been teaching us."

And so, the last truth. There is hope, because there are remarkable people. Unseen, uncounted, unnamed, but holding the world together, and moving it on.

Anurag Behar is CEO of Azim Premji Foundation

Source: Mintepaper, 20/01/22

Quote of the Day January 19, 2022

 

“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), Syrian Poet

“जिनसे प्रेम करते हैं, उन्हें जाने दें, वे यदि लौट आते हैं तो वे सदा के लिए आपके हैं। और अगर नहीं लौटते हैं तो वे कभी आपके थे ही नहीं।”
खलील ज़िब्रान (१८८३-१९३१), सीरियाई कवि

Changing arranged marriage

 

Today’s parents are more like facilitators, maintaining a respectful distance and enabling their children to determine their own future

In the ‘pick and click’ online world, the arranged marriage system has assumed a new avatar. What’s different now is the wide range of choices, the independence to explore options and the ease of interaction, all of which indicate a clean break with a conservative past.

I remember a day in the mid-1970s when a match-maker (known as marriage broker) handed over a few horoscopes matching my own to my father to go through in detail. There were some photos of the would-be grooms too that didn’t quite impress me, so I was a bit too vocal about my views. Soon, I was summoned to the kitchen by my no-nonsense mother who was waiting to impart a home truth to me in a fierce whisper, “Now, if you’re looking for someone like the hero in your Mills & Boon novels, then forget it! Such a guy wouldn’t give a second glance at you or me. So, let’s be realistic, shall we?” I then confronted her with the possibility of me being rejected by the ‘non-heroes’ as well but she assured me that they too would’ve been counselled suitably on the impracticality of seeking a Miss World for a bride. That’s it! With little choice in the matter, it would remind one of the plight of a pair of frogs united in wedlock by villagers for the sake of a good monsoon — in the case of humans, to fulfil a duty.

Today’s parents are more like facilitators, maintaining a respectful distance and enabling their children to determine their own future for themselves. In contrast, parents of an earlier generation were constant worriers who couldn’t let go of their control over the situation. Most of the times, they monopolised the entire show, right from choosing a partner for their children to deciding on the place of their honeymoon. Meantime, they wouldd also remember to come out with a list of don’ts for the soon-to-be-married bride or groom in order to ensure appropriate behaviour before the prospective in-laws, at least until the time the knot was tied. I recall no less than two commands on D-Day, “Don’t giggle too much like an over-eager bride. Let there be self-restraint!” and “No jabbering unnecessarily till all the rituals are over!”

In such a rigid atmosphere, romantic notions, if any, between the couple would’ve fallen flat along with the jokes and jibes made at their expense by fun-loving friends and cousins. In effect, the whole ceremony was like a project that needed to be completed on time to everyone’s satisfaction. Once the rituals came to an end, there was more in store for the young couple. They were expected to go around the wedding hall and prostrate themselves before every elderly attendee in order to receive their blessings. No wonder, by the end of the day, their smiles remained frozen on their lips without reaching their eyes due to aching knees and feet.

Imagine the pang of regret I had, when in a recent wedding function, I heard the priest announce through the mike, “All you elders in the hall, please assemble in front of the stage and be ready to bless the young couple who will do only one common ‘namaskaram’ before you all as it’s more than enough!” How quick and easy — no strain, no pain! Here’s one more reason for the present-day newly weds to believe that marriages are indeed made in heaven.

Source: The Hindu, 16/01/22

Saraswathi Narayanan

What is space anemia?

 The space travel damages the red blood cells in human body. Such condition where the RBC count in the body reduces due to space travel is referred to as Space anemia. In simple terms, lower RBC count in space is called space anemia.

What is space anemia?

The red blood cells are rich in iron. They carry oxygen to different parts of the body. When a human is on the earth, his body creates and destroys two million Red Blood Cells per second. However, when the same person is in space, around three million Red Blood Cells are destroyed per second. This results in loss of 54% more RBCs when the person in space. This lower count of RBC is referred to as space anemia.

Earlier misconceptions

When the astronauts are in space, their bodily fluids shift towards their upper body. This happens due to lack of gravity. It increases pressure in eyes and brain. This leads to cardiovascular diseases. Also, as the bodily fluids shift towards the upper body parts, the astronauts lose 10% of the liquid in their blood vessels. Earlier researchers believed that space anemia occurred due to this shift of the bodily fluids. They also believed that the loss of RBCs was temporary. The count restored and returned to normal after the astronauts spent ten days in space. However, the recent findings have proved that it is not so.

 Recent findings

The research team measured the RBC destruction in space. The RBC has hemoglobin. Heme is iron and globin is a  protein. The hemoglobin carries oxygen. The researchers found that every time the RBC is destroyed, a molecule of carbon monoxide was created. This means the RBC count does not restore to normal in space. Rather it deteriorates the health by producing carbon monoxide.

Impacts

Having lesser RBC count in space is not an issue. However, space anemia can affect the energy levels of astronauts landing on moon or mars. They might lose strength or may even fall sick. This might affect the overall objective of a mission.

Current Affairs-January 19, 2022

 

INDIA

– World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Davos Agenda 2022: PM Modi introduces ‘P3 (Pro-Planet People) movement’ for climate change commitments

– Padma Shri awardee Bengali cartoonist Narayan Debnath dies at 97 in Kolkata; created comic characters ‘Bantul The Great’, ‘Handa Bhonda’, ‘Bahadur Beral’ and ‘Nonte Phonte’

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– Indian Army signs contract worth Rs 96 crore with Anadron Systems Pvt Ltd under Make-II for Maneuverable Expendable Aerial Target

– Bureaucrat Vikram Dev Dutt appointed new CMD of Air India

WORLD

– Microsoft to buy video game company Activision Blizzard in $68.7-bn deal

SPORTS

– Football: Robert Lewandowski of Poland & Bayern Munich wins Best FIFA Men’s Player Award

Current Affairs-January 18, 2022

 

INDIA

– Kathak dancer Pandit Birju Maharaj dies aged 83 in Delhi; won Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1964) and Padma Vibhushan (1986)

– Social worker and Padma Shri awardee Shanti Devi dies in Odisha at 88

– Theatre personality Shaoli Mitra dies in Kolkata at 74; awarded Sangeet Natak Akademi in 2003 & Padma Shri in 2009

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs conducting Open Data Week from January 17 to 21; aims to show the benefits of open data such as increased efficiency & transparency

– MeitY organises 26th CISO Deep Dive Training program under Cyber Surakshit Bharat initiative

– Narendra Goenka takes over as new Chairman of AEPC (Apparel Export Promotion Council)

WORLD

– PM Modi delivers State of the World special address at World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda

– 2 Indians among 3 killed in drone attack on oil storage facility in Abu Dhabi (UAE); Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim responsibility

– Credit Suisse Chairman resigns for having violated COVID-19 quarantine rules

– Greek painter Alekos Fassianos dies in Athens at the age of 86