Lead For Ghana recruits young graduates for mentorship
Lead For Ghana, a not-for-profit leadership development and networking organization, is seeking out young and brilliant recent university graduates for mentorship into its two-year teaching and community development jobs.
The recruits, otherwise called Fellows, will be deployed after successful mentorship to teach in basic schools in communities across the country in any of Science, Mathematics, Information Technology or English.
Applications for the 2020 cohort are opened online until midday of May 19, 2020, and applicants will be tested for core competencies to prove their capacity for future success in the classroom and beyond, with successful candidates receiving official offers to join the Lead for Ghana leadership development Fellowship, conditional also on their university transcripts and references.
Lead For Ghana envisions to help build a country where all children have the opportunity to attain an excellent education, irrespective of their socio-economic background and geographical location.
2019 Lead For Ghana cohort
“An education that equips children to complete Senior High School, with full access to University”, explains Daniel Dotse, Chief Executive Officer, who adds that with excellent education Ghanaian school children should be able to strive for academic excellence, and be critical thinkers able to explore the world around them.
“They will ask questions, challenge norms, and seek to understand and digest information. They will have control over their financial lives, determine their career choices, and develop a plan to execute their aspirations. They will approach life with a strong sense of possibility, passion and zeal, with a willingness to address challenges and develop solution-based thinking.”
Under the mentorship programme, Fellows are paid a monthly salary with social security benefits. One year of the two-year fellowship counts towards the National Service Scheme requirement.
The Ghana Education Service works with Lead For Ghana to select partner schools.
Upon completion of the two years, alumni of the fellowship are inducted into the Lead For Ghana Alumni Network. Lead For Ghana then supports them to grow into leadership positions in government and the private sector to drive resources, and make systemic changes that will ensure that every child in Ghana has access to an excellent education irrespective of their socio-economic background or geographical location.
Making a difference
Asked how the Lead For Ghana approach to the art of teaching makes the anticipated difference, Daniel Dotse explained that “To achieve our vision and put children in Ghana on a different life trajectory, we recruit a corps of Ghana’s most promising university graduates and young professionals from varied academic disciplines. We train and place Fellows as basic school teachers for two years to teach Mathematics, Science, English, and Information Technology in underserved schools in Ghana, with clear accountability for their classroom and community outcomes.
“Throughout the two years of the fellowship, we support the development of both teaching and leadership capabilities of Fellows to maximize the impact on student achievement, school cultures as well as community views and expectations around education.
“After the two-year leadership development fellowship, the Fellows are inducted into the Lead For Ghana Alumni Network, a pantheon of leaders, bound by a shared experience of teaching and leading communities. Our alumni work across the public and private sectors to impact the educational system in Ghana and Africa.”
Impact to Date
Established in 2016, Lead For Ghana has 65 Fellows in 29 schools across Western, Volta, and Northern Regions, helping to improve educational outcomes of more than 2,000 children. The organisation plans to expand to the Ashanti, Greater Accra,and Eastern regions by close of 2020.