1
Placement report Teach For India
April 2018 – June 2018
Vincent Fransen
S2538296
Master International Security
Bastiaan Aardema
2 Table of Content
Introduction………...…3
Teach For India………...………..4
Getting Started………..……4
Reporting………...………6
Development Activities……….7
Research……….8
Curriculum Design………9
Placement Supervision & Living in Mumbai………..…….10
Connection to the degree & Career Prospects……….……11
3 Introduction
My Master placement was conducted at Teach For India (TFI). TFI is an NGO that fights against the education crisis in India. I chose for an internship at this organization because I wanted to experience how a civil society actor operates and generates impact in India. The reason for India is that I focused most of my Bachelor and Master on India. Moreover, I am writing my Master Thesis on Indian civil society. Therefore, India was my first choice regarding the country of my internship. I specifically applied for an internship at TFI because this NGO has made a, tremendous impact even though it was founded only nine years ago. Furthermore, Teach For India is part of a larger network called Teach For All. This international aspect of the organization fits well with my Master International Security.
I found this internship through the website www.intershala.com. After applying, I was asked to do two assignments: writing a report for an American donor and creating a fund proposal. Subsequently, a skype interview was conducted by Venil Ali, the City Director of Mumbai. Afterwards, it was announced that I was offered an internship in the development team of the Mumbai chapter.
I had little time to prepare myself for the internship as I had to be in India ten days after I was offered the internship. Luckily, I was already familiar with Teach For India and the Indian education crisis. Therefore, I did not have to prepare myself too much for this internship. There were no financial issues since the cost of living in Mumbai is less than it would have been in Groningen. My main expectation of the internship was that I would do my tasks independently and that there would be room for my own input. Moreover, I expected that the workload would be high and that the main objective TFI is fighting for would motivate me to work hard.
First, I will describe my beginning at TFI. Subsequently, I will discuss my duties an evaluate how I performed each of my tasks. Then, I will discuss briefly how it was to live in Mumbai. Afterwards, I will reflect on the connection between my Master and the internship. Lastly, I will analyze my personal development during this internship in the conclusion.
4 Teach For India
It is necessary to explain India’s education crisis in order to understand what TFI as an organization does. In India, 76 percent of the students do not make it into the higher education system. Moreover, 52 percent of grade 5 students cannot read a standard grade 2 text. Another major issue is that there is a huge teacher deficit in India. TFI believes that the main cause of this crisis is a lack of leadership in the education sector.1 TFI developed a two-part theory of change, in order to improve education in India. The Fellowship program realizes change in the short-term by providing an opportunity to promising individuals to serve as full-time teachers to children from low-income communities. Long-term change is achieved by engaging with TFI Alumni and leaders in the education sector. TFI supports and advocates change in this growing community.2
Teach for India was founded in 2009 by Shaheen Mistri. She felt that something needed to be done about the education situation in India. TFI started with 89 Fellows in 2009 who became TFI’s first Alumni in 2011. Currently, TFI has 1250 Fellows, over 1500 Alumni and is present in seven cities across India. Each year, 500.000 students are impacted by TFI. The goal is to grow towards 1.000.000 students within three years.3
Getting started at TFI
I was an intern within the development team of the Mumbai division of Teach For India. Normally, I would have had one or two coworkers in this team. However, these spots were vacant during my internship. Therefore, I did the development work together with the City Director of Mumbai. Within TFI, the development team is responsible for raising funds for the operations of TFI. TFI is completely dependent on donations. Therefore, the development team fulfills a critical function within the organization. As mentioned, I had no coworkers in the Mumbai development team. Luckily, the national team is also located in the Mumbai office. The national development team provided me with support and explanations. My first day at the office consisted of getting familiar with the development strategies of TFI.
After I have gotten familiar with the organization and the strategy of the development team, Venil suggested I should visit multiple TFI schools the following days. There were two thoughts behind this: Firstly, my main task during the first month of my internship was writing the end of the year reports for the Mumbai donors. Therefore, it would be helpful to experience myself what I am reporting about. Secondly, TFI finds it important that all staff members visit schools so that everyone knows what they are working for. My goal for the interaction with the Fellows was to discover what their motivation was for joining the Fellowship, what challenges they encountered and what their highlights so far have been. For the students, I wanted to know what values were taught by their teachers (one of the core objectives of TFI), if they had any wishes regarding their school situation and what their future plans were. I visited eight schools across Mumbai in total in the time-spawn of two days.
1 “The Education Crisis” http://www.teachforindia.org/ed-crisis (Accessed: 20-06-2018). 2 “Our Model” http://www.teachforindia.org/our-model. (Accessed: 20-06-2018). 3 “Beginnings” http://www.teachforindia.org/beginnings. (Accessed: 20-06-2018).
5 The first thing that struck me during these visits was the level of English comprehension of the students. I could have a proper conversation with most students. Moreover, I was very impressed with the teaching abilities of our Fellows. I had to remind myself that these people were my age and only had five weeks of training before they started teaching. Most Fellows joined Teach For India because they felt they needed to give something back to the community. The background of the Fellows was very diverse. I spoke with Fellows that studied, Engineering Phycology and economics. The challenges Fellows faced were also different for each school. At one school, parent engagement was a major issue. The Fellow I spoke with explained that her students lived in two separate worlds. The values she taught in her classroom were not present in the families of her students. Moreover, parents kept their children from going to school to do domestic chores instead. A Fellow at another school faced more practical issues. Her school lacked proper sanitation and Fellows developed kidney stones because they were not able to go to the bathroom at school. Furthermore, the classes were overpopulated, causing students to sit in the hallways to experience some of the class.
The students were very excited to interact with me and they had many questions about who I am, where I come from and what I do. All students I interacted with could explain to me how TFI improved their academic skills and taught them the right values and mindset. Furthermore, most students were planning on pursuing higher education after tenth grade. It was remarkable how motived the students were and their positive attitude towards their own education. I also took the opportunity to learn more about gender issues in India, as this is the subject of my thesis. After talking with multiple Fellows and students, it became apparent that gender issues differ from each family. Some parents were very invested in the education of their daughter. The majority of the girls, however, do not get the same changes as the boys in India. I spoke with multiple girls that wanted to pursue higher education but were not allowed by their parents. The situation of one girl struck me in particular. This girl was the top student of her school and her dream was to become a doctor. However, her teacher told me that she was most likely to be married off within a year or two. Overall, it can be concluded that the situation for girls is improving in India. Nevertheless, parents are more invested in the future of their sons than the future of their daughters.
The school visits gave me much insight in the education crisis in India. I realized that the problem was more complex that I could ever imagine. The needs and challenges differed from each school I visited. It was difficult to imagine that I only saw a part of the problem of the situation in Mumbai, where TFI attempts to improve the situation in whole of India. Indian society is complex and the education sector touches many layers of this society. I realized how large and complex the goal is to provide excellent education to each student in India. Nevertheless, the interactions with our Fellows and students made me extremely motivated to contribute as much as I could in the two months I was a part of this organization.
6 End of the year reporting
The school year in India ends in the middle of April, the same time my internship started. This meant that I worked during reporting season at TFI. TFI provides reports to its donors in the middle and at the end of the year. I had to write reports for about 20 donors. Most of these donors were national donors, which meant that my reports were combined with reports of other cities. There were also 6 city donors to whom I reported directly.
The most challenging part of making the reports for me were the calculations I had to make in Excel. Working with data is not my strongest asset and it took me a lot of effort to be sure I did not make any mistakes. For the reports, I had to make graphs of the scores of the students of the classrooms the respective donor supported and compare those scores with the city wide average. The other parts of the reports were qualitative such as city updates and Fellow stories. I felt more confident with that side of the reporting. Overall, the reporting did not require much intellectual effort since it consisted mostly of putting the correct data in the right place. This task was more about having an eye for detail and making sure no mistakes were made.
The workload during these weeks of reporting was very high. I had to do all the reporting by myself and there was a strict deadline for when I had to hand in all of the reports. In the meantime, I also had to do small tasks like answering emails and organizing documents. Creating the first reports was enjoyable because it was something I had never done before. However, I noticed I got bored and a bit frustrated after I had done a few reports. There was no room for any creativity or own input whatsoever. It was simply a task that had to be done. Making the reports also showed my strong and weak sides. I noticed that I was finishing my reports quicker than my coworkers from other cities. However, I also kept making small mistakes in the beginning. Even after I checked my own work. It is the same with writing essays and making exams. I work faster than most other students, but I also make unnecessary mistakes. There was no room for error with these reports. Therefore, I decided that I was going to use the extra time I had to check my work four or five times. This decision had the result I wanted since the manager of the national development team told me on my last day that I was the only one that handed in all reports without any errors.
Another difficulty I faced that much student data was missing. Whenever data was missing, I had to contact the responsible program manager. If the program manager also did not have the data, I had to contact the responsible Fellow. By doing so, I noticed that trusting on sending an email was not successful in India as people did not answer most of the times. Whenever I needed data, I had to call the Program Managers multiple times before I finally received the data I needed.
Overall, I was content when I finished my reports. It had been stressful and, sometimes, frustrating weeks. Nevertheless, I was proud on my finished reports and my work ethic. I managed to make all deadlines and I handed in my reports without mistakes. What I want to improve in the future is how I dealt with the stress of the high workload these weeks. Moreover, I tend to panic when a problem occurs instead of searching for a solution straight away. I realized this when I saw how my coworkers handled a problem situation. In my second week, I discovered that the Fellow stories for one donor were missing and the report for this donor needed to be finished within a couple of days. My first reaction was to stress about the situation, instead of thinking of a solution. When I told Venil, she immediately came up with a plan of
7 how to collect these Fellow stories. This situation showed me that stressing too much works counterproductive.
Development activities
Donor research
After the reporting period was over, I focused more on fundraising activities. This consisted of three main tasks: researching new possible donors, creating fund proposals and clarifying the interactions between TFI and existing donors. While researching new donors, I had to qualify the companies according to the “three C’s”: capacity, caring and connection. In India, companies are obligated to donate two percent of their profit to charity. So, my first step in the research process was to check a company’s financial record to examine if it was capable of sponsoring our organization. The next step in the process was to see if the company had any interest in the education sector. For example, some companies mentioned explicitly in their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy that it supported the educational sector. If a company did not provide a CSR policy, I searched for previous CSR activities to discover if that company had any interest in improving education in India. The final step of researching a company was to check if it has had any interaction with TFI. This was done by checking the company’s account on SalesForce, the system on which TFI keeps track of all development activities. If there had not been any contact, I was supposed to find out if somebody within the organization had any connection.
I organized all my findings in a spreadsheet and qualified each company from high to low priority for pursuing. I noticed that I enjoyed these research tasks significantly more than writing reports. This motivated me to conduct this research thoroughly. Furthermore, I felt more confident doing this kind of activities in comparison to reporting. I was not as afraid to make mistakes and I was able to do these tasks independently without support. Overall, I was pleased with the work I delivered and I received positive feedback from Venil.
Proposals
Another task I had in this period was writing a few proposals for engagement plans with companies. This was not a difficult task since most parts of these proposals were standard text. It just needed to be adjusted to fit the company it was meant for. The most important thing was to get every detail right. I felt I was able to do a better job at this because of all the reports I had written. What I liked about creating these proposals is that Venil asked for my personal judgement, instead of telling me what to do. She would tell me to look at proposals and add and edit where ever I felt it was needed. Because of these things, I felt regarded to as a staff member instead of an intern. This made me even more motivated to do a good job. Unfortunately, these development processes take much time, sometimes up to six months. Therefore, I do not know yet if any of my proposals will be accepted Nevertheless, I felt I contributed to the organization with the writing of these proposals.
8 Organizing past interactions
Because there was no development team for the Mumbai chapter, a lack of overview had occurred of the interactions TFI have had with some companies. It was my task to organize all documents we had sent in the past years and create an overview of the relationships between TFI and these companies.
Venil sent me a bunch of email chains and I started with organizing all documents in Google Drive. I made folders for each company and organized different documents such as proposals, presentations, fund utilization reports and general reports. Subsequently, I created a spreadsheet in which I made a representation of the relationship TFI Mumbai had with each of these companies. Lastly, I analyzed which companies TFI should prioritize to pursue for further engagement. These tasks were not very challenging. Therefore, I added extra matters such as the analysis.
An absolute highlight in this period was that I joined a meeting with the chief of Rothschild. I joined Venil to south Mumbai where we met Sir Richard Stagg in the head office of Rothschild. Rothschild was already a donor of TF and the meeting was about how the employees of Rothschild could engage with TFI. Venil provided multiple examples such as parent meetings on financial literacy, class visits, weekly mentoring, yearly creative day or a sports day. My role during the meeting was mainly observant. Nevertheless, it was very educational to attend this. Venil was able to share her passion for TFI with Sir Stagg and every question he had was answered adequately. At the end, Sir Stagg asked me why I came all the way to India to do my internship. This gave me the opportunity to share my enthusiasm of TFI and India in general. Overall, it was inspiring to witness how Venil conducted such a meeting.
NGO Research
Two and a halve weeks before the end of my internship, I felt that my work-load was too low. Therefore, I asked Venil how I could be more valuable to the organization. She suggested that I could conduct a research on the NGO landscape in Mumbai. It is TFI’s objective that Fellows work in the education sector after their Fellowship ends. The problem was, however, that there was no clarity which NGOs worked in the education sector in Mumbai and which segments of this sector were strongly represented. Moreover, there was no clear image in which parts of the education sector our Alumni worked.
I was excited to start this project since I could design the whole research the way I wanted it. The first part of the project regarded the NGO landscape in Mumbai. First, I gathered all NGOs that worked in the education sector (about 300). Then, I filtered all NGOs of which there was no information available. This left me with about 100 NGOs. Subsequently, I created a capacity rating system, which I used to evaluate the budget of a NGO and its capacity to generate impact. Furthermore, I designed an overall rating system with which I scaled all NGOs on the basis of sustainability, ability to grow and other criteria. I put all my findings for each NGO in a spreadsheet together with information such as year of origin, which segment of
9 education it worked (inclusive education, school finance, curriculum design, parent engagement, etc.) and examples of projects. With this data, I created graphs that represented how many NGOs in each part of the education sector were present and which parts of the sector had strong or weak NGOs. Lastly, I drew multiple conclusions on the NGO landscape of Mumbai.
The second part of my project concerned TFIs Alumni. The Alumni manager of TFI Mumbai shared a database in which all Alumni were present. From this database, I selected those who worked in the education sector. I made a graph to represent in which segments of the education sector our Alumni worked. I crossed this with the NGO landscape I created and drew some conclusions. The most important conclusion was that there were many strong NGOs that focused on Inclusive Education in Mumbai, but that none of our Alumni worked in that segment.
This project was my proudest work during my internship and I really enjoyed conducting this research. Venil said she was very impressed with my speed and quality of work. According to her, it will be easier now to advice Fellows for which NGOs they can work. I also discussed my project with the Alumni manager and she said my conclusions gave her much insight and that she was going to engage more with NGOs that work for Inclusive Education. Overall, I felt I could showcase my strengths with this project while being valuable for the organization. I realized that I function best when I can decide myself how I perform a task, instead of following precisely someone’s orders. Therefore, I am glad Venil gave me the chance to do this project exactly the way I wanted to.
Curriculum Design
I was asked during my last period at TFI by Nalika (Senior Program Manager) to help with the history curriculum for the 9th grade. Venil told me explicitly that I only had to do it if I was interested, since it was not development work. Since I hold a Bachelor’s in history, specialized in Indian history, I was very interested in helping Nalika.
Nalika gave me the history textbook for the 9th grade and the first step was to make a factsheet of the chapter I was working on. This had to be done since there is a gap between the English level of students in some classrooms. The factsheet helps to remind students what the Fellow is teaching. The next step was to add sources that showed a different perspective than the textbook. History is all about perspectives and the standard textbook of the students was very one-sided. Especially the parts about India’s internal conflicts. I was able to find many useful sources on the topic since I wrote my thesis on the Assam and Kashmir conflict. Subsequently, I created lesson plans for the Fellows and assignments for the students.
It was extremely challenging to estimate what a 9th grade student in India can comprehend and what sort of assignments or activities they would find interesting. I had no frame of reference since I have zero experience performing in such tasks. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable to use my bachelor in practice. However, I felt I needed more knowledge of curriculum design to be able to adequately conduct this task. It was nice that I got the space
10 during my internship to explore different teams within TFI. This gave me more insight in how this NGO operates.
Placement Supervision
It was very inspiring to work directly with Venil. She has been with the organization from the beginning and has worked for almost all teams within TFI. She was doubling the position of the development team with her position as City Director since there were no other people working for the development team during my internship. This required me to work independently. Although Venil could not always be at the office, I could always reach her if I had any questions. Furthermore, she would take time to give me feedback or explanations, even though she was busy. I feel that I am lucky I was the only one working for the Mumbai development team since it caused that I was never treated as an intern. Venil gave me serious tasks and responsibilities. What I enjoyed most is that Venil asked me for my own judgement and that she trusted my opinions. This gave me the opportunity to develop myself within the organization. Overall, I felt that Venil and I were a good team. She would provide me with clear explanations at the beginning of each task, which enabled me to work independently without much support.
Living in Mumbai
Living in Mumbai is not suitable for everybody. The city is busy, dirty, huge and confusing. However, Mumbai is also vibrant, interesting, diverse and beautiful. For people that have a fascination for India, it is an amazing experience to live in Mumbai and participate in the day to day life. There are some challenges however. The biggest one is the infrastructure. The traffic in Mumbai is slow and dangerous. The local train is a cheap, but tricky option. About ten people die every week in the Mumbai trains. I have taken the local train a few times during rush hour and it is not a pleasant experience. Therefore, I took Ubers and Rickshaws to office. The office was about 20 minutes from my hostel, but sometimes it took me over two hours to reach. Luckily, we had flexible working hours at TFI. Everybody chose when they started and ended each day. If I would arrive late due to traffic, I simply stayed longer at the office.
Another challenge in Mumbai is falling ill. The food in India is amazing but as a Westerner, you are prone to fall ill at least one time. Another problem for myself was the accommodation. I stayed at a hostel, which meant I shared a room with six people. Therefore, I did not sleep for more than four hours most nights. The upside of living at a hostel was that it was easy meeting people to explore the city with. It is cheap to live in Mumbai and the city is relatively safe. People are willing to help you and are excited to have conversations with you.
11 Connection to the degree
The internship does not seem to be well connected to my International Security degree. However, I focus mostly on Human Security. This concept is concerned with how people can be saved from poverty. In that sense, there is a clear connection between my placement and my degree. The international aspect of my placement was that most donors I communicated with were international companies. Furthermore, Teach For India is part of a global network (Teach For All).
The fact that I am used to process large amount of texts during my degree helped me to perform my tasks faster than my coworkers. I was complimented multiple times on my speed of work. Moreover, I am trained to perform research independently. Therefore, I was able to design my research projects by myself, without support. Lastly, within my degree, there is an emphasis on developing your own view and thinking critically. It was noticeable that I differed in that area from my coworkers that were not educated in Europe. Instead of blindly following orders, I always thought of how I could improve the process. Another example is that I was capable of expressing my views when Venil asked for my opinion.
Career Orientation
My placement at TFI has made me realize that working for an NGO in India is what I want to do after I graduate. It felt great to do work which makes a difference. The ambiance at the office was always positive because everyone worked together to obtain the same goal: to provide excellent education for every student in India. Moreover, I built many contacts inside and outside of TFI which will be useful in my further career. Venil also wrote me a recommendation letter in which she highlights my speed and quality of work, as well as my ability to work independently. I am seriously considering applying at TFI because my internship was a success and I could see myself working for this organization. For students that want to apply for an internship at TFI, I advise that you show that you have a passion for India and the education sector. TFI mostly seeks people that are motivated to work hard to fight the education crisis in India.
12 Conclusion
Overall, I am content with my internship. I wished it lasted longer than two months, but this was not possible due to my Visa. I expected that the internship would involve hard work, room for own input and working independently. Furthermore, I expected that working for a goal like improving education would motivate me to do a good job. All my expectations and more were met. Moreover, it was my goal to discover if working for an Indian NGO would be something I want to do as a career. As mentioned before, the internship made me realize that this is something I want to do. I cannot imagine myself only working to make a profit. Working for an NGO suits me better.
When I started my internship, I was very quiet and afraid to make mistakes. This improved gradually. After the reporting, I was more confident in my role. Furthermore, the feedback Venil gave caused that I was able to trust my own judgements and develop my own views on matters. At the end, I was less worried about making mistakes and more focused on how I could be most valuable for the organization. Therefore, it is a shame that the internship only lasted two months since I felt I was finally able to function properly at the and of the placement.
My biggest problem was that I kept making small mistakes in the beginning. Eventually, I compensated this lack of eye for detail with my ability to work fast. I checked my own work at least four times which eliminated all mistakes. A matter I still need to work on is communicating with my supervisor and coworkers during my tasks. My asset of working independently is also my pitfall. I tend to neglect updating my manager and coworkers on how my project is going and if I need any help. Another point of improvement is how I organize my work. My coworkers were very organized in the sense that they put everything in their Google Calendar, kept there notes well-ordered and made plans of what they were going to do each day. I tend to work very unorganized. I kept forgetting to update my calendar and I kept most of my notes in my head. Furthermore, I never made a plan for the day of what I am going to do at which moment. This always works for me, but when you work in a team, it needs to be transparent what you are doing in which moment. Therefore, I want to work more organized in the future. Lastly, I found it difficult to prioritize between different tasks. When someone asked me to do something, I usually did it right away. However, sometimes it was more important to do something else in that moment. This can also be traced back to the fact that I need to work more organized. Prioritizing tasks will be easier when I have a clear overview of everything I need to do.
Overall, I can say that the placement was a success. I learned much about different aspects of how a big NGO such as TFI operates. Furthermore, I felt I made a valuable contribution to the organization. I hope that I will soon be working for Teach For India again.
