On May 24th, ALforEducation launched a new, selective Apprenticeship program that aims to prepare the future leaders of Africa’s education sector to lead transformational change. The first iteration of the program has been offered to ALA alumni, MasterCard Foundation Scholars, and ALU students and alumni. From a group of 87 applicants, 15 exemplary young education leaders were chosen as participants.
The diverse group of Apprentices brings a broad range of experience in the education sector. All were chosen because of their desire and ambition to lead change on the African continent through education. The program will support these aspiring leaders in understanding and reimagining education on the continent, building an intentional community with their peers, and gaining intensive exposure and experience in the sector.
“The main motivation for this new program was to properly prepare young people in our network to go into education and build a vision for change,” shared Kalliope Kruesmann ‘12, the ALforEducation Network Lead and key member of the program design and implementation team.
The 13-week Apprenticeship is guided by an online learning experience that focuses on the foundations of education, with three modules: The Nature of Learning; The Purpose of Education; and Thinking at African Scale. Each module has core course content, discussion boards, assignments and expert guest speakers to share insights and answer questions. The 15 participants then enter the experiential learning portion of the experience, in which they are placed schools in their region. During this time, they are completing a “Little Bet” Innovation Project for their host organisation, and learning alongside an accomplished school leader. Each apprentice receives a school improvement challenge for which they must build an experiment, challenging them to research, develop an innovation, implement and evaluate over the course of 8 weeks.
The program culminates in a final Gathering in which apprentices present their work: both the outcome of their projects and their reflections from the program. “We are very much looking forward to fostering an intentional, lifelong community within this program,” says Kalliope, “driven by a shared ambition of building transformational schools and leading systemic change in the Education sector on the continent.”
Meet some of the Apprentices:
