An Interview with Alia Omer: Teach for India

Teach for India is an organisation which aims to address the education inequity in India, by providing equal education to all children irrespective of their socio-economic background. At the National Conference On Youth in Social Change organised in Manipal on 25-26th August, Teach for India set up a stall. In interview with Alia Omer from the organisation:

Sriya: How do you plan on taking this mission for equal education to the grassroots level, such as in rural areas?

Alia: As of now we are present only in 7 metropolitan cities, but we have an incubator program called TFIx which enables local entrepreneurs to build programs and fellowships to the local children. We don’t have many fellowships there yet because it is difficult to find people who are able to go to rural areas and understand the problems there. The local people understand these issues and we help equip them with the tools they need to solve them.

Sriya: How impactful has Firki, your online teacher training portal, been in your mission?

Alia: We have 9000 registrations on the portal, which is a big deal for us. It’s only been one year since the launch so we don’t have any statistical data, but we are aiming on creating awareness to people who don’t have access to resources but can at least register on the portal. That is our first goal, but for now we are extremely pleased with the response on the portal. The long term idea is for the teachers who are trained on the portal to take online classes.

Sriya: What do you think is essential to teach underprivileged students to help them to grow and succeed?

Alia: The content being taught is the same but the methodology is different. Recently one of our fellows held a Harry Potter themed class, which was aimed to help the students improve their proficiency in English. The curriculum is the same but how we impact the students is what makes the difference. The greater the impact on young minds, the greater the difference. We follow 3 different buckets, the first being academic achievement, which is helping the child decide what career path they want to follow. Second is exposure and access, which helps them decide what their place and purpose in this world is. The third is value and mindsets, where we help children solve the problems they have in real life. We plan our lessons having components from each of these 3 buckets to provide an excellent education.

-As reported by Sriya Peri

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