Wipro Science Education Fellowship program inducts 61 school teachers

Wipro Ltd along with its partners University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston, Mercy College and Montclair State University on Wednesday announced the induction of 61 school teachers into the Wipro Science Education Fellowship (SEF) program in the United States.

This is the second batch of teachers being inducted into the programme.

The Wipro Science Education Fellowship is a two-year science teacher-leadership program which aims to address the needs of improving STEM teaching and learning.

The aim of the program is to support teachers to become local leaders and to serve the needs and vision of the school district in which they teach.

The main purpose of the program, which began in 2012, is to foster leadership and teaching excellence in science education. Wipro's commitment of 5.1 million Dollars will be used over seven years to

train three batches of 180 teachers (in total).

The program is administered through UMass Boston's Center of Science and Mathematics in Context (COSMIC). The program is also being implemented in Mercy College in New York and Montclair State

University in New Jersey along with UMass at Boston.

The program covers five school districts in the Greater Boston area (led by UMass Boston), five school districts in Northern New Jersey (led by Montclair State University) and five school districts in the

NY metropolitan area (led by Mercy College).

Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board, Wipro Limited, T K Kurien, said that young people should be nurtured to take up careers in the field of science.

"We are proud of these remarkable teachers for joining this program and becoming leaders in their community...Our larger vision, a goal shared across the U.S., is that we must invest in young people and

prepare our future leaders for careers in the field of science. And this program is a step towards achieving that goal," he said.

Chief Sustainability Officer of Wipro Limited Anurag Behar said that the program equips teachers to be agents of change.

"This program is designed to equip teachers with the tools they need to be agents of change and give students the right orientation for them to be successful in the field of science...These efforts also

align with our vision of making impactful strides toward higher quality education," he said.

Meanwhile, Professor of Physics and Director of COSMIC at UMass Boston Arthur Eisenkraft said that the teachers undergoing the training can bring sustainable change in the science education.

"Through the generosity and vision of Wipro, these Fellows can become teacher leaders and support sustainable change in science education in their school systems while remaining in the classroom," he said.

Over the lifetime of the program, 180 fellows and tens of thousands of students will be positively impacted in 15 school districts in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.