The first organisation to visit the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, for a pre-placement talk this year is an NGO and not an MNC.

Around 40 students from first and second year attended the pre-placement talk on Friday where Teach for India Foundation, which works to end educational inequality in India, spoke about itself.

“Many students want to start their careers with NGOs and this is a trend we want to encourage,” said Arun Devadas, placement representative, IIM Calcutta.

Teach for India is offering a two-year fellowship to the graduates where they will work as teachers in schools across the country for a stipend — a job profile at odds with the usual offers from banks, consulting firms and multinational companies.

“I think what they are offering will be acceptable to many of us,” said Hariharan Sriram, the external relations cell secretary of IIM Calcutta, who attended the session.

The NGO has schemes enabling students to defer repayment of their education loans till the end of their two-year fellowship.

The NGO also has an understanding with some MNCs allowing students to push back their joining dates in those companies by two years.

IIM Calcutta’s interest in the social sector is not new. The institute has a students’ initiative called Initiative for Community Action under which free consultancy services are offered to organisations doing social work.

“We’ve have always had students interested in the social sector. The problem is that most NGOs think they can’t hire from the IIMs,” said Samyuktha Thirumani, external relations cell secretary, IIM Calcutta.

For David Touthang, who worked as a teacher at a government school in Manipur before joining the Joka business school, the pre-placement talk by the NGO was the opportunity he had been looking for.