Millennials ditching corporate jobs for teaching: Study

Millennials in India are increasingly saying goodbye to their high-flying corporate jobs and taking the teaching route to utilise their skills and impart knowledge to young students, a study has found.

The study conducted by Bangaluru-based education technology startup, Cuemath, on over 3,000 teachers reveals that there has been an upswing in the number of millennials opting for a career as an educator, especially by the workforce in corporate jobs.

Millennials are those born after 1980 and the first generation to come of age in the new millennium.

According to the analysis, 50 per cent of the teachers come from experience in a corporate job.

The data further reveals that over 58 per cent of teachers fall in the 20-35 year age bracket, a drastic change from the scenario a decade ago.

The study also shows a majority of the teachers list ME, M.Tech, M.Com, MBA and PhD as either their first or highest qualification (53 per cent) followed by BE, B.Tech, B.Sc (44 per cent).

"A lot of working professionals are turning to teaching today because of the satisfaction teaching as a career can offer," said Manan Khurma, Founder & CEO, Cuemath.

"In fact, in our study, a mere three per cent of the teachers actually chose to do a B.Ed initially, reflecting how teaching might not have been their plan A but is a career of a choice today," Khurma said.

The millennial workforce returning to the classrooms brings with them the realities common to their generation, such as flexible learner-centred models, researchers said.

These teachers are more likely to support situations that allow students to pace their learning outcomes, they said.