Education India Project #57853

Educate 32000 underserved children in India

by Teach For India U.S.

Project Report | Aug 20, 2026
Harvard Study & More: The Impact of Your Generosity

By Neha Gupta | Executive Director

When you supported Teach For India, you weren't just funding a teacher or a classroom. You were backing a hypothesis: that talented, driven individuals, given the right support to lead, could change what's possible for India's poorest children — and for the country's future.

That hypothesis has now been tested. Independently. Rigorously.

The Conclusion:

“Test scores measured what students learned. TFI's real impact is who they became.”

— Harvard Business School Research Team

The research found that Teach For India's impact goes far beyond academic progress — it is, in their words, “the care that shows up where the system doesn't.”

Here is what your support has helped achieve.

Excellent Academic Outcomes

97% passed Grade 10 Board Exams on 1st attempt — with 60% of students earning first class, surpassing state benchmarks.
85% passed Maths assessments across Grades 1–8, with 50% achieving first class.
84% of students showed reading comprehension growth across Grades 1–8, with 65% at, above or near grade proficiency.

Whole-Child Development

A Harvard Business School research team independently chose to assess Teach For India's holistic impact.

Over 100 field conversations with students, Alumni, and Fellows — including visits to some of India's most under-resourced communities, such as Dharavi and Govandi — surfaced three consistent threads:

Gender Equity & Agency — Where the world tells girls to be quiet, TFI teaches them to be heard.
Wellness & Safe Spaces — Mental health, nutrition, and safety have a place on the agenda, not the referral list.
Career Readiness & Future Pathways — Students name the lives they would have had without TFI, and the ones they have because of it.

Future Readiness

For the first time, independent impact evaluation firm Populi surveyed a representative sample of 10% of Teach For India's ~16,000 Student Alumni.

They found measurable progress across three critical areas: educational attainment, workforce participation, and civic engagement and confidence.

83% complete grade 12, vs. 47% nationally — with higher holistic growth.
75% enter higher education, vs. 28% nationally — with 2x STEM participation compared to the national average.
40% higher incomes for female students, with 38% workforce participation vs. 26% national average, and significantly higher agency — only 3.7% of TFI female student alumni ages 20–24 are married, vs. 46% national average.

The researchers called this “The Virtuous Cycle of Impact — every Fellow seeds a multi-generational chain reaction."

Economic Mobility & 21st Century Skills

Alumni consistently pointed to one thing as a door-opener: English fluency. They credited their TFI classrooms with the confidence, aspiration, and learning mindset that carried them forward — and said their Fellows inspired them to serve others in turn.

The desire to give back evident in the 70+ TFI Student Alumni that have chosen to come back and serve as TFI Fellows, continuing the cycle of impact.

An independent Cambridge study confirmed the pattern: 75% of TFI students reached A2 or higher spoken English proficiency on the CEFR standard, compared to 47% of a control group.

This revalidates a prior Columbia University longitudinal study findings:

5X faster growth in English fluency for Teach For India students vs. peers in comparable classrooms.
2.5X faster growth in Mathematics for Teach For India students vs. peers in comparable classrooms.

The Multiplier Effect Of Alumni

The Harvard Business School study found that the cycle of impact doesn't end with students. Fellows, transformed by their own time in the classroom, continue to serve — reaching 50 million children today through their work.

70% of Fellow Alumni have stayed in the social sector since 2009, founding and running 200+ organizations that reach 50 million children across every level of the system.

One recent example: Tarun Cherukuri, a Teach For India Fellow Alum and founder of Indus Action, was named one of only three organizations worldwide to receive the 2026 Skoll Award for Social Innovation.

“TFI is putting hundreds of people into the system who put kids at the center and feel ownership … and bring an unusual level of passion and commitment.”

Together, we have built one of India's largest leadership movements for equity — with Fellow Alumni now operating across the ecosystem, building cradle-to-career systems in our cities of work.

Every fluency gain, every diploma, every Fellow who stays in the fight for equity, every one of the 50 million children now touched by this movement — it traces back to a decision you made to believe in our work before the proof of its impact existed.

The research is in. It's official. You were right.

And we can't wait to take this movement into its next stage of growth with you — starting with expanding to a 9th region, Gurgaon, and growing the Fellowship cohort by 20%, welcoming 600+ Fellows in 2026 to transform even more student lives.

Thank you for walking this path with us — and for being part of something bigger. None of this would be possible without YOU.

HBS Study Findings, 2026

Beyond The Score: Harvard Business School Findings

The reach of the TFI Movement

Thank YOU for making this movement possible

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Apr 21, 2026
Building Classrooms Where Leaders Rise

By Neha Gupta | Executive Director

Thank YOU for making this movement possible

Foundational literacy and numeracy have often been treated as the goal post for first-generation learners from low-income communities. Thanks to YOUR support, Teach for India is proving that our systems need to dream bigger for ALL our children.

As the 2025–2026 academic year draws to a close, we are proud to share what over 32,000 students and their 1,000+ Didis/Bhaiyas (TFI Fellows/teachers) have accomplished together across 880+ classrooms in India's highest-need regions. It has been a year of remarkable results and we see momentum building not just in metrics, but in mindsets, mastery, and movement.

Here is a glimpse of what you have made possible through your geneoristy.

Holistic Student Development: Results That Reflect Our Belief

At Teach For India, we have always believed that the children who face the greatest barriers deserve the greatest ambitions. This year's academic outcomes are a testament to what becomes possible when students, Fellows (teachers), and school leaders stay deeply committed, believe in every child's potential, and hold high expectations.

Every single one of TFI's Grade 10 Delhi students passed their Board exams — and the 100% pass rate is only the beginning.

47% achieved first class distinction, compared to 26% last year, with two schools reaching 68% and 60% respectively.
Across all regions, overall academic metrics improved by 5 to 9 percentage points — consistent, system-wide progress driven by a holistic approach rooted in understanding, application, and 21st century skill building rather than rote learning.

What excites us most is not just what TFI students are scoring. It is what they are doing with what they know.

80% of TFI classrooms met mid-year targets for our Student Vision Scale of Leading Self, Leading Others, and Leading India.
In Ahmedabad, Grade 6 students launched a podcast, interviewing scientists and community leaders, discovering their own voices in the process.
In Delhi, Grade 8 students turned a classroom conversation about hygiene and civic responsibility into a whole-school movement, learning that you can drive change at any age.

And the impact of finding one's confidence and curiosity endures long after students leave our classrooms. Alumni are running their own mentoring programs while completing degrees abroad and winning McKinsey Case Competitions.

More than 80 student alumni have come full circle — returning to serve as TFI Fellows and be the leaders that give other children the same clarity and opportunity they once received.

Beyond these students, there is another layer of leaders rising within the classrooms.

Reshaping the System: Scaling a Movement of Leaders

Teach For India Fellows are the engine behind these student outcomes. Carefully selected through a rigorous process with an acceptance rate of just ~2.5%, they commit two years to teaching in under-resourced schools — and emerge as lifelong leaders with an unmatched drive for equity and the ability to lead with love.

The numbers reflect the transformation they experience:

96% of Year 2 Fellows aspire to remain in the education or social sector;
70% of alumni do remain, year after year, powering a multiplier effect that drives impact for decades.
TFI's 5,300 alumni have collectively founded 160+ organizations and, working at every level of India's education system, reach 50 million children.

Behind every statistic is a person who chose to go deeper. This year, that commitment was formally recognized: St. Xavier's College is awarding approximately 60 Fellows a Master's in Transformational Leadership, built around the fellowship experience itself. These Fellows are doing the kind of reflective work that defines great leaders — writing portraits of their students as full human beings, mapping the communities their children come from, building belonging through morning meetings, and listening carefully to the school stakeholders whose stories often go unheard. We invite you to explore their beautiful work.

This year also marked the launch of Teach For India’s 9th region — Gurgaon, reaching children who have never before had a TFI Fellow in their classroom. This will increase the cohort of TFI Fellows to be recruited in 2026 to ~600 compared to 500 in 2025.

Alongside this expansion, TFI is working with authorities and alumni to establishing Child Safety Collectives across all regions — a commitment to ensuring that every school in our network is a safe and dignified space for every child. After all, excellent education begins with protection, trust, and belonging.

How Your Support Fuels This Work

None of the above would be possible without YOU. The support that allows a brilliant young person to spend two years in India's most underserved classrooms. The coaching that shapes an aspiring changemaker into a great teacher. The development that turns a Fellow into a lifelong leader for equity. Your generosity makes all of it possible — and every classroom result, every student who found their voice, every alumni who came back to serve, traces back to that investment.

The movement you have helped build is working. It is transforming student lives and creating India's most capable talent pipeline for the social sector. And yet, the children waiting for their first excellent teacher cannot wait. The next generation of leaders is sitting in many more classrooms right now — and they need a Fellow to believe in them before they can believe in themselves. We need your continued partnership to keep that belief alive.

Thank you for trusting in our vision and dreaming bigger with us — that one day, all children will attain an excellent education — and for bringing us closer, year by year, to making that dream a reality in communities that need it most.

And built classrooms where leaders rise

With a world much wider than their surroundings

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Oct 24, 2025
Rewriting India's Education Story, Together

By Neha Gupta | Executive Director

Thanks to YOUR support, we’re one step closer to an India where one day ALL children can realize their fullest potential through an excellent education.

Today, over 33,000 children learn and thrive daily in 220+ low-income classrooms across 8 cities, guided by 1,000+ Teach For India Didis & Bhaiyas (Fellows)— India's brightest talent recruited diligently with a highly selective 6% acceptance rate.

What began as a two-year Fellowship has now grown into a 15-year movement for education equity— where 5,300+ Fellow Alumni and 15,000+ Student Alumni* are leading efforts to transform the education system and reach India's forgotten children. The ecosystem-level impact of this movement is being felt and recognized by independent non-profits like Darsa in their India Nonprofit Report: Role, Evolution, and Impact report.

As we look towards a bold North Star of creating 50,000 leaders for India's education system, the need to go beyond the Fellowship and nurture entrepreneurs and students eager to drive systemic change becomes paramount. Thanks to partners like YOU encouraging us to #DreamBigger, the exciting Build More Leader programs at TFI are enabling hundreds of success stories across the education ecosystem.

Empowering Local Movements of Transformation

TFIx is TFI’s incubation and lifelong learning program, empowering local education entrepreneurs to launch and sustain high-impact, community-rooted teaching Fellowships. Today:

49 incubated Teaching Fellowships operate across 18 states
650,000 children are reached, including those in the remotest parts of India
60+ leaders trained and supported

One such leader is Anshu Jaiswal, a 2024–25 TFIx entrepreneur, who launched the Swabhiman Fellowship in Bihar’s brick kilns. Through this initiative, Swabhiman Fellows — a powerful group of local changemakers— run Akshar Learning Centers within kiln communities, breaking cycles of generational bondage that echo modern-day slavery. Their work is transforming the lives of kiln workers’ children, giving them access to education, dignity, and hope. Since inception, they've had incredible impact with 400+ children enrolled last year, 250 families receiving essential documents & social security and over 3,000 children reached.

Thanks to TFIx, thousands of children— once invisible in government records— proudly count to 100 in class. Their hands and hearts, once heavy with labor, are now filled with learning and dreams.

Turning Curiosity into Systemic Change

InnovatED, TFI's nine-month incubation platform, builds a network of education entrepreneurs transforming learning nationwide. With 59 entrepreneurs incubated and 1.35 million children reached globally, the program gives these dreamers unparalleled support and opportunity. Alumni ventures have experienced:

4.8× growth in reach, 4× growth in funding

7 of 8 ventures have advanced to IIM Bangalore’s NSRCEL Launchpad

From helping launch Inqui-Lab Foundation that nurtures creativity and agency among students across India, the Maldives, and Bhutan to technology solutions like Zeffko that reimagine school management systems for low-income schools, InnovatED is creating the system support desperately needed beyond the school for low-income children to thrive.

Kids as Changemakers: Unleashing Student Leadership

TFI's Kids Education Revolution (KER), is reimagining education with empowering students to take action now, not someday. With 1,300+ student leaders developed and 100,000+ student revolutionaries and educations involved, the new paradigm for education focuses on the “8Cs"— Curiosity, Courage, Compassion, Creativity, Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, and Citizenship. All skills that are critical ingredients for success in the modern workplace and go far beyond foundational literacy and numeracy.

A leading example of these revolutionaries is Astha Chaubey, who began her Community of Wisdom project in 11th grade, mobilizing peers for local change and developing leadership skills in low-income community's children through a 2 month program. Today, the program works with four government schools across Pune helping kids innovate different sustainable solutions to solve their community's problems.

Young leaders like her continue to prove that age is no barrier to impact and Kids can truly revolutionize education.

The Power of YOU

None of this is possible without your belief and generosity. Because of YOUR support of the TFI movement, forgotten spaces are becoming classrooms, laborers are becoming learners and children in the highest need communities are transforming into dreamers and leaders. Together, we’re rewriting India’s education story— one entrepreneur, one classroom, one community at a time.

Thank you for being an irreplaceable part of this movement!

*Teach For India Student Alumni are former students who completed their education through 10th grade in TFI classrooms— and are now changemakers in their own right. Over 70 have returned as Fellows, continuing the cycle of transformation and proving that leadership is indeed contagious.

Bringing Identity and Dignity to ALL

Putting Books not Bricks in Children's hands

Transforming education across India

For opening a window of opportunity for ALL

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