Work with us — The Learning Centre Trust
The Learning Centre Trust · Mangaluru

We are looking for people who want to be argued with.

A Montessori kindergarten, a school, a STEM institute, a research centre and a coffee roastery, run by one Trust on the principle that anything we teach should be able to survive being tested.

Roles

Where we recruit.

Across five institutions on two campuses in Mangaluru. Some roles open at fixed points in the academic year; research and volunteer positions run continuously.

Staff and students on campus

Teachers — sciences and mathematics

TLC School and CFAL · Grades 6 to 12

Physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics, across Cambridge IGCSE, the Karnataka PU stream, and preparation for JEE, NEET and KCET. Olympiad-level teaching for those who want it.

This suits you if you would rather run the experiment first and derive the principle from it than announce the principle and then demonstrate it. Physics here follows the Nuffield approach, which is slower and harder to teach.
Rolling

Montessori guides and early years teachers

Early Learning Centre · Ages 3 to 6

Mixed-age Montessori classrooms with the outdoors treated as part of the environment rather than a break from it. Training in Montessori and Reggio Emilia practice is provided through our own teacher training centre.

This suits you if you are willing to be trained, whether or not you arrive qualified. Several of our strongest guides did not start with a Montessori diploma.
Rolling

Doctoral scholars

CFAL Research Centre · Sustainability, education, cognition

Scholars work on live projects rather than isolated theses — the urban tree database, the micro-climate station network, or the long-term study of how students at CFAL actually learn. Two to three positions in the first year, deliberately.

Before you apply: university affiliation for the programme is in progress and not yet confirmed. We would rather tell you that than have you find out later.
Expected

Researchers and visiting scientists

CFAL Research Centre

Urban ecology, environmental monitoring and modelling, botanical research, and cognition. Our current team came from wildlife biology, neuroscience, hypersonic aerodynamics, physics and instrumentation.

Changing fields is not a disadvantage here. It is close to the norm, and it is why the work is rigorous — people arrive with methods the field has not seen.
Rolling

Teacher trainers

IMTC · Montessori and Reggio Emilia

Training our own teachers, and training government school teachers free of charge, as we have for more than six years.

This suits you if you want your practice to leave the room you teach in.
Expected

Administration, finance and operations

Across the Trust

Academic administration, admissions, finance, systems and campus operations for an institution running five entities across two campuses.

This suits you if you like building the process rather than inheriting one. Much of what exists here was written by the person doing the job.
Rolling

Field volunteers

Trees of Mangaluru · Unpaid

Surveying trees ward by ward — species, girth, height, canopy, condition. No science degree required. You need to know your neighbourhood and be willing to walk it.

Open to students, colleges and organisations. Training and field kit provided.
Open
Culture

What working here is actually like.

Your teaching gets examined
The Research Centre studies whether the practices we use are helping our own students. That means your methods may be measured, and it also means a method that works can be adopted across the institution rather than staying in your classroom.
Researchers and teachers share a campus
Not a visiting arrangement. A biology teacher can walk a class to the people building the city's tree database, and a researcher can test an idea on students the same week.
You will be trained
The Trust runs its own teacher training centre. Professional development is not a certificate you chase in the holidays; it happens here, and it is part of the job.
The institution is small enough to see
Decisions are made by people you can walk to. Governance, including the charter the Governing Body works to, is published rather than described.
Teachers at work
Teachers at work
The training centre
The training centre
Fieldwork
Fieldwork
Being direct

What we do not offer.

Worth saying before you spend an afternoon on an application.

We are not a large organisationThere is no deep bench. If you take a role here, the work is visibly yours, which is either the appeal or the problem depending on the person.
The Research Centre is youngEstablished in 2023, with no peer-reviewed paper of its own yet. If you need an established publication record around you, this is the wrong year to join.
We are in MangaluruNot a metro, and most roles are on campus rather than remote. For many people that is the point; for some it is a deal-breaker.
We will disagree with youClaims are expected to be tested here, including ours and including yours. People who find that energising do well. People who find it tiring do not stay.
We would rather hire someone who says "I don't know, let's find out" than someone who is never wrong in a meeting.What we look for
Process

How hiring works.

You write to us

A CV and a short note on why this institution rather than another. The note matters more than the CV.

A conversation

About your subject and how you think it should be taught or investigated, not about your availability.

You teach or present

Teaching roles take a class. Research roles present their own work to the team. Both are paid.

You spend time on campus

You should see the place properly before deciding, and we should see how you are with students and colleagues.

Decision, either way

You will hear back whether or not you are appointed. Silence after an interview is a failure of manners, and we treat it as one.

Apply

Apply.

Write to us with your CV and that short note. Tell us which institution and which subject, and if you are applying for research, what question you would want to work on.

Teaching, administration and operations: office@cfalindia.com
Research, doctoral positions and field volunteering: research@cfal.in

+91 99005 20233 · Kavoor and Kottara Cross campuses, Mangaluru