This engineer quit his job to become a teacher; 80K students impacted
At the recently held Echoing Green Fellowship award ceremony, Gaurav Singh, Founder and CEO of 3.2.1 Foundation, re-emphasised children's importance in building a country's future. Gaurav is an engineer who quit his job to work towards this goal.
Gaurav was selected for the first global batch of the Fisher Fellowship with the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) schools. To understand educational practices all over the world, he travelled to countries such as Finland, China, and the United Kingdom. He started 3.2.1 Education Foundation in 2012 and was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship and Echoing Green Fellowship for his good work the next year.
It was when Gaurav was in the second year of his Teach for India (TFI) fellowship that he had some big ideas — best practices had no real-world application; scalable examples were the need of the hour; and that there was a requirement for a workplace where everyone comes together to build a scalable programme. He wanted to build a team of people who would make a difference to the country’s educational practices. This idea was the foundation of his organisation.
Presently, there are lakhs of teachers in school and many more joining the field every year. However, most are neither aware of new educational practices that will help students nor do they have access to a community where they can share their experiences and learn new things. Also, there are no high-quality coaching and mentoring facilities available for teachers.
The foundation's fellowship programme, IGNITE, begins with appreciating teachers for their good work. Then, they organise a grand ceremony in the school where teachers are honoured in the presence of their families.
Through the ceremony, they want to highlight the role teachers play in ensuring that a country's future is bright. In the process, they also remind the teachers of their importance. After the ceremony, the organisation dedicates itself to training the teachers.
Gaurav says his team is well-versed with all the required books, training materials, and research papers, which are then presented to teachers in a simple and fun manner to ignite their enthusiasm.
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