Washington - The pay is low but the competition is fierce for the job to teach underprivileged children in some of America's poorest schools.
More than 35,000 applications have flooded in this year for about 6,000 openings at Teach for America (TFA), a non-profit organisation working to eradicate educational inequity.
The spike in interest is being attributed in equal parts to the worsening job situation and the rising interest in public service since Mr Barack Obama emphasised it during his presidential campaign.
The best and the brightest at the nation's top colleges vie for these spots every year and the number of applications has risen steadily since the TFA's founding in 1990.
Some 11 per cent of graduating seniors at Ivy League colleges such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton applied this year.
TFA alumni are prized by future employers and sought out by graduate schools because they are seen as being able to handle challenging situations.
Still, the 42 per cent jump in applications to join the programme was a big surprise and pointed to shifting attitudes of a generation.
Ms Eliza Finley, 21, put her plan to go to Harvard Law School on hold when she learnt she had been accepted by the TFA.
'I will be teaching maths to middle school students in New Orleans. It will be a really hard job, I know, but I expect I will find it fulfilling,' said Ms Finley, who will graduate in three weeks' time in Economics and Gender Studies from Pomona College in Claremont, California.
She is not too sorry that her annual pay, in the range of US$30,000 (S$44,000) to US$40,000, will be half that of her peers who will join financial firms.
The best part: Harvard will hold her spot until she finishes her TFA stint and a federal grant that she will receive for public service can be used to pay off her education loan.
The thousands who will graduate this year are also making a beeline for other public service programmes such as AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps.
The Peace Corps, which has more than 7,800 volunteers serving in 76 countries, has reported a 16 per cent increase in applications over the past year.
AmeriCorps, which works with local and national non-profit organisations to connect volunteers with service opportunities, has seen online applications quadruple in the first two months of this year.
Mr Trevor Stutz, TFA's national communication manager, said: 'This generation grew up witnessing the Sept 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. These events made a tremendous impact. We saw that students are interested in doing meaningful work for the community beyond simply getting ahead for themselves.'
The argument for social justice becomes especially attractive when there is an element of economic compulsion to it.
'There are all these young people out there in need of work and in need of money for school who want to serve their communities,' AmeriCorps official Jessica Simonson told a local newspaper in response to the large influx of applications from students. She supervises programmes in New York City and Long Island.
Whatever the motivation, the recession-hit communities will appreciate the extra hands.
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
No comments:
Post a Comment