You can join Pratibha Poshak for any one or more of the following roles.

• Mentor

• Teacher

• Language Bridging Course Assistant

• Sponsor 11^th and 12^th grade (pre-university) education

Mentors play the central role in this project. Each mentor is assigned a group of 10-12 students. As a mentor you will do the following and more.

• Inspire your students to dream bigger.

• Help your students see their own potential and develop self-confidence.

• Conduct periodic motivating sessions to sustain their efforts and focus.

• Strengthen the attitudes of curiosity-driven enquiry, careful listening, logical analysis and thoughtful response.

• Teach them not to be afraid of making mistakes.

• Inculcate good values, such as respect for each other, commitment to words, excellence in work, honesty and helping others.

• Help them improve their communication skills.

• Develop them into self-learners.

• Establish a connection where they feel comfortable sharing their difficulties.

• Talk to their parents, if and when necessary.

• Provide minor financial aid to your students to help them buy notebooks, a school bag, a dictionary or any other study material required in high schools, or to go on a school trip. Your financial aid is not expected to exceed INR 2,000 ($25) per year, per student.

• Be a role model and lead by example.

Mentors are expected to interact (online) with their assigned group of students at least once every week for a duration of one hour. During school holidays, more sessions can be held.

If you are passionate about teaching any of the following subjects, you can express your interest to be a teacher.

• Elementary and High school mathematics with interesting, daily-life applications and the “why” of every formula

• Reasoning and problem-solving skills through engaging puzzles

• Physics, Chemistry or Biology with great passion, clarity and joy

• English language (reading, writing and speaking)

You should love to make your classes interactive and enable the students to think for prolonged duration and arrive at the answers/proofs. We believe mere flow of information should not occupy much time of any class.

As the students are from Kannada medium schools, it is ideal if you can teach in Kannada. You can mix English/Hindi words to the extent that your explanation and examples in Kannada make the meaning of the terms clear to the students. However, if you cannot teach or speak in Kannada, we would still like to hear from you. We are experimenting with few Hindi/English speaking teachers with course assistants to bridge the language gap.

Panel interview and demonstration of your teaching skill

If you are interested in the teaching role, you will be needed to present a 20-30 minutes demonstration of your teaching skills during the panel interview. You should choose a very specific concept/topic relevant for high school students and then explain it assuming as little prior knowledge as possible. We look for the following important aspects in your teaching skills (a) Interesting and relatable applications to motivate the students, (b) driving home the "why" of everything taught, and (c) times when viewers (imagined students) are prodded to think and arrive at a solution. Feel free to make use of slides, animated videos or a digital whiteboard as necessary.

* Teachers and course assistants can specify whether they expect a remuneration or wish to work as a volunteer.

* Online teaching sessions will be from 6:30 AM to 7:40 AM and 7 PM to 8:10 PM, weekly four sessions of Mathematics, six sessions of Science (P,C,B - 2 hours each) and two sessions of English.

* Mentors are expected to contribute their time voluntarily.

At this stage, all our students are from Kannada medium schools. However, many passionate and gifted teachers of Mathematics and Science may not be able to teach in Kannada. We believe that if we enable Hindi/English speaking subject teachers to communicate with these children, we can have the required number of high quality teachers. The role of Language Bridging Couse Assistants is to make this happen, by participating and assisting in every class taught by Hindi/English speaking teacher.

Education up to the 10^th grade in Government and Government-aided schools in India does not involve significant expenses. Minor expenses for notebooks and other essentials are expected to be met by the respective mentors. However, families of most students chosen for this programme cannot afford the pre-university (11^th and 12^th) Science education and training for higher education. The total expenses for these two pre-university years will be about INR 50,000 (approximately $700) for one student. As a sponsor, you can choose to provide financial support for one or more students. The student you support will personally interact with you and give you reports of his/her academic performance.