iTeach Fellowship

Low income schools in India cannot effectively recruit, coach and train high quality new teachers. The lack of strong teachers has led to abysmal learning outcomes for students across low income schools in India. iTeach directly helps low income schools by removing their stress of recruitment, coaching, responsibilities and risks of teachers quitting mid- term. iTeach recruits the highest potential new teachers for its Fellowship and places them in low income schools. Taking Pune as a representative city, with 1400 low income schools and 1000 poorly prepared teachers graduating every year, the problem is massive. iTeach is aiming to solve this at significant scale, attempting to enroll 200 of these graduates every year in each city, and then expanding to more cities. iTeach Fellowship has 3 key focus areas – recruitment, training and retention. For recruitment, we conduct campus drives at teacher education colleges, followed by a selection process based on the most relevant competencies required for strong teaching. We refine this selection process based on research, our own internal data and inputs from school principals. Post selection, our program team takes over starting with a 3 week intense pre-service induction. This induction lays the foundation for a strong culture, and starts addressing the largest teacher skill gaps. Next the teachers start in school, with constant hands-on coaching and regular skill building workshops. As the year progresses, the majority of training moves online, allowing us to reach many teachers at low cost. The year is also punctuated with learning circles and retreats, along with a rewards and recognition program to keeps teachers motivated. At the end of the academic year we transfer the teacher from iTeach to the school itself.