The Change Fellowship Program
Enhancing the student learning experience at every student level in the classroom can only bring equity, joyful learning, and skills development among students.
Shikshanganga Foundation runs its flagship fellowship program under these critical issues addressed through innovative classroom practices involvement of government and community stakeholders physically and virtually.
Our Fellowship Program prioritizes the holistic growth of students in Under-resourced
schools, focusing on those in rural and semi-urban areas. We understand that these circumstances can improve students' academic learning progress, social and emotional development, wellness, and intensive skills development throughout their learning journey.
It's essential to acknowledge that students encounter challenges in urban areas and remote rural and tribal regions. Maharashtra alone has over one lakh schools, making public education a considerable aspect of the educational landscape.
We believe in implementing a systemic approach to education reform that will strengthen the grassroots education system. To achieve this, we employ several strategies, such as intervening through part-time or full-time classroom teaching fellowship programs, providing afterschool support, promoting socio-emotional learning, fostering student leadership, and encouraging community engagement for better student learning outcomes.
Our focus is on enhancing the student classroom learning experience in educational settings of rural and semi-urban regions by addressing critical aspects at the system level. To support their overall growth and development, we strive to provide high-quality education to all students, irrespective of their background or location.
The fellowship program is for 11 months at present; from 2025, it will be upgraded to a two-year full-time fellowship program.
We carefully select passionate youth as fellows who demonstrate high levels of motivation, professionalism, strong character, and a passion for the teaching-learning process at their local region . Our fellows must embody inclusivity, empathy, and a giving-back approach and be comfortable working with both the classroom and the community.
In simpler terms, fellows should have a developmental leadership attitude, meaning they possess the qualities and mindset necessary for facilitating growth and development in others.
Once selected, fellows will fulfil three functional roles: passionate educator, guide & coach.
We provide a blended/physical Institute Training program to prepare our fellows. This training is designed to nurture fellows by equipping them with the necessary knowledge, skills, and mindset to implement best experiential facilitating practices in the classroom, promote socio-emotional learning, conduct periodic assessments, ensure student well-being and leadership, and build their capacity as leaders.
The Institute Training program typically lasts 3-4 weeks, during which fellows engage in various learning and training activities to enhance their understanding and core abilities in these critical areas to function.
After rigorous training, the fellow will placed in local government/government funded/low-income private schools as a Teaching Fellow. Their responsibilities include classroom facilitations, conducting periodic assessments, student individualized support, field visits, student leadership coaching, and creating collaborative spaces.
They will also engage in parent-teacher meetings, Socio-Emotional Learning Training, Impact Monitoring, and Student Counselling to provide excellent educational resources and support to the school and community.
The fellowship program supports fellows for individual professional leadership development with the component like Planning, Execution, Communication, Relationship Building, and providing experience of working with the school system & different stakeholders.
The organization also supports/prepare fellows for getting employment opportunities within the organization and organizations from development sectors.