The Apprentice Project (TAP) is an initiative started by Teach for India, IIM and YIF fellows that gives underprivileged students the chance to learn what they love and use that as a medium to build 21st century skills essential to the current environment. We aim to instill these skills by connecting them with skilled mentors from diverse fields (sports, visual and performance arts and technical) in a classroom environment for a period of six months.
TAP aims to inspire a movement – a movement that defines inequality as nothing but the lack of opportunity. It is a movement that strives to overcome inequality by giving all children the opportunity to reach their unique potential.
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
Children in low-income communities face the struggles of limited perspectives to envision their future, lack of motivation to push for a better tomorrow, and lack the skills to succeed in the current world. Hence they get stuck in the spiral of poverty.
1. In School: No joy or purpose of coming to school. More than 32 children out of 100 who dropped out of school in the age-group of 10-14 years did so because they did not think that education was necessary.
2. After school: No vision about future leading to uninformed choice of path after school. Enrolment in class 10 is 77 percent, but enrolment in class 11 is only 52 per cent, according to a report from the New Delhi-based Institute for Policy Research Studies.
3. In college: Cultural divide aggravated by depleted social communication skills leading to a marginalized existence in college or possibly drop-outs. First generation college students from low-income communities straddle between the strikingly diverse cultures of their own environment and that of the college.
4. After college: Lack of critical & creative thinking and collaborative working skills leading to lack of employability or limited success at workplaces. 47% graduates in India are not employable for any industry role and only 22% of the employer’s desire domain expertise. This is based on the report titled ‘Aspiring Minds’ National Employability Report’ and India skills report 2017.
The Apprentice Project aims to empowered children to realize their unique potential by productively utilizing the available interest clubs space in schools and using the tools of creative & critical thinking, collaboration, self-reflection, and communication.
We give kids a chance to learn what they love by connecting them to volunteers who teach what they love.
TAP places high-skilled individuals in under-resourced schools where students pick skills that they would like to learn from one of the four verticals: performance arts, visual arts, sports and cognitive skills, in a classroom environment.
TAP has been running in 11 under-resourced schools in Pune since 2016. We have 77 teachers impacting 1100 students. Our teachers are experts from different fields leading a varied set of clubs encompassing coding, electronics, public speaking, dance, theater, ultimate Frisbee and football.
In 2018 academic year we will be providing equal opportunities to 1500 kids across 15 under-resourced schools in Pune.
WHY YOU SHOULD CONTRIBUTE?
Contribute if you want to radically change what a school education can look like for these children in under-resourced schools, if you believe that poverty shouldn't dictate a child's destiny, if you believe in the transformational power of the arts and sports.
It is time for us to breathe change into the education system. Come, join us as we try to effect change – one apprenticeship at a time.