We are Teach For India (TFI) fellows working in Chennai Boys Higher Secondary School, Saidapet. We are here to uphold the vision of TFI “One day all children will attain an excellent education”.
School has quite good infrastructure with playground, library, one smart classroom and laboratories for higher grade classes. There are around 70 government teachers in school in addition to the Head master and assistant headmaster. This school is place for 1700 children, thus one of the biggest schools with Chennai Corporation.
We teach in 8th grade classes. Grade 8 has 5 sections, in which 2 sections are handled by us. The TFI classrooms are at 6th year intervention.
Teach For India (TFI) is a non-profit organization that is a part of the Teach For All network. The Fellowship recruits college graduates and working professionals to serve as full-time teachers in a government or low-income schools for two years. Teach For India is striving to end the problem of educational inequity in India and provide an excellent education to all children.
It’s saddening that, ‘quality of education we receive depends on the financial status of our family’. Most our children are victims of this.
Our children come from a low economical background, where most of their parents are uneducated and could offer minimal support to child's education. Children are leading a tough life back at home as many of their fathers are alcoholics leading to fewer role models children can look up to. 15 to 20 % of our children are raised by single mothers working as daily wagers.
The children are caught in vicious circle of wicked problems like poverty, inaccessibility to excellent education, political issues and many more. Students lead a tough life back home as the exposure to negative elements overshadow the positive elements making them easy targets for picking up bad habits. The disruptive behavior of children in classroom is an evidence to the effect of community on them. There is very less understanding about the importance of education. Except for the few, many haven’t realized what lies ahead, so investment for their education needs a big push. It’s soothing that a few parents are aware of the importance of education and actually push their children to achieve greater heights. However, most parents are caught in chores of everyday to meet the basic needs of the family, investing them in child’s education will always be the task at hand.
The school has a good infrastructure with spacious classrooms and large playground. However the quality of education is way below the expectations and mandates a huge scope for improvement.
We believe that, ‘every individual has an equal right to live a life of their choice’ and given an opportunity and access to explore one’s strengths would shape the life of children.
(click on the images for more information)
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1. Mime Club
2. Coding Club
3. Science club and basic equipments for science lab
4. Speak Up Club
5. Olympiads and Competitive exams
6. Sports equipments and Kits for school team
7. Classroom supplies
8. Study materials and resources
9. Classroom leveled library
10. Field trips
11. Career fair
12. Smart classroom
