2💡Why local philanthropists are a powerful lever for systems change | ed jobs & podcasts
Hi friends,
We are in a bizarre moment. As my young cousins head back to school in the US—masked/vaccinated, closer to pre-pandemic normal—most teachers across the Global South still have months (if not years) before their students have access to vaccines. I believe the worst effects of Covid will not only be the deaths—although of course those are horrific—but the way kids around the world have lost critical years of learning.
This issue of EdWell showcases three foundations who have been leading excellent work to keep children learning in Brazil, India, and South Africa. It also has a great roundup of ed podcasts, lessons for ed reformers from Finland, Poland, and South Korea, and other opportunities (lots of orgs hiring right now!)
Since our last issue, I’ve been learning about how big institutions and funders work—through consulting for a large foundation and a part-time role with an education advisor at the UK’s FCDO. In graduate school, I’ve been studying how politics impacts ed reform and how leaders grow movements to shift ed systems. I started this newsletter as a way to share tools with 1,000 of the amazing people in my network who care about education. If you know someone who might find it useful—a team member, friend, or job-hunting mentee—would you consider forwarding it to them?
Warmly,
Kat
kat@edwell.io
How Locally-led Foundations Create Systems Change—A 5-Step Playbook from Central Square, DGMT & Lemann
For years I’ve been thinking about what is wrong with philanthropy. I finally sat down to try & document a better way. There is so much we can learn from these 3 foundations, who all have an approach rooted in a specific country context, with a long-term mindset that catalyzes innovation across public & private systems. They know their greatest resource is not their grants, but the way they connect local leaders across an ecosystem for collective impact. I hope people will start organizations like these in many more countries (if that’s you, please email me!)
If You Want to Change Schools, Listen to These 17 Podcasts.
From my brilliant friend Dr. Molade Osibodu, a Nigerian ed professor & former teacher at ALA. She’s curated a stellar list of her favorite episodes about issues like race, desegregation, equity & philanthropy. Mostly about the US, with lots of gems that are useful for Global South reformers. Pick one to throw on the next time you’re cooking, commuting, or taking a WFH walk break.
Amanda Ripley on 7 Steps to Improve Schools—From Finland, Poland & South Korea
My takeaways from The Smartest Kids in the World. For anyone wanting to quickly reform your ed system over a generation—this book has so many ideas for policy changes you can consider, like: place teacher trainees in the nation’s best schools, create rigorous national standards, & delay tracking until age 16. We can’t replicate these 3 countries (as they are pretty homogenous, have specific historical contexts, etc), but this is a great primer to provoke your thinking!
To see these jobs/opportunities/events/media as they come across my desk, Follow me on LinkedIn.
Jobs
Latin American Leadership Academy: COO, VP of Biz Ops, Director of HR, Comms/Marketing
Teach for All: Chief of Staff-Americas, Fundraising-Africa & others
Teaching at the Right Level: M&E, fundraising, programs & others
Children’s Investment Fund Foundation: Director-Francophone West Africa, Manager-strategy/comms, Technical Architects-India
Education Partnerships Group: Manager-Fundraising & BD
Michael & Susan Dell Foundation: Program Manager-India
The Citizens Foundation: digital fundraising, learning/assessment design & others
Central Square Foundation: many in strategy, edtech, state reforms
African Leadership Academy: Director-Teaching/Learning, Assistant for ed network, heads of dept/faculty for Entrepreneurial Leadership, STEM & others
Education Outcomes Fund: Chief of Staff, Senior Fundraising Manager
Mastercard Foundation: many in Nigeria, M&E, research, lead for their Edtech Fellowship
Mercy Corps: Senior Advisor-Youth Unemployment
Edtech Hub: Consultants w Tanzania focus
Malala Fund: Program Director-Nigeria
African Visionary Fund: Comms Consultant
Africa Management Institute: Senior Impact Manager
Luminos Fund: Country Manager, Liberia
Open Development & Education: research roles in West Africa
Edusko: Growth Lead-Nigeria
AMPLIFY Network: Grant Writer
Brookings Institution Center for Universal Education: Fellow, Scaling Education
Opportunities
Are you a white funder who wants to prioritize racial/gender equity? Apply to Camelback’s Capital Collaborative.
Leading change in schools/edtech/govt/nonprofits? Join the Metis online network for tools & resources.
Want to learn best practices in ECD? Take a free MOOC from UNICEF & Harvard.
Testing innovations for father-child relationships in South Africa? Apply for $.
Adapting teaching at the right level to Sub-Saharan Africa? Apply for $.
Events
RISE’s annual conference on ed systems change is this week, Sept 22-24.
My Co-Founder Rebecca spoke about why we need to value scaling through networks & sharing knowledge between many diverse models—not only scaling a few models—at the 2021 ALforEd Gathering; watch it here.
Teach for All’s virtual Global Conference is Oct 27-30.
Media
Kenza Bouhaj’s awesome roundup of resources for African edtech entrepreneurs & analysis of the funding landscape for GSV.
BvLF’s Early Childhood Matters 2020 publication has 33 articles on ECD in Colombia, Chile, Zanzibar, Bangladesh, etc.
Metis, RELI & Edtech East Africa have a podcast about how to keep kids learning during Covid, with lessons from Kenya.
My friend Sharmi’s new newsletter on the care economy.
So many interviews of ed leaders! Founder of Latin American Leadership Academy on Latitud; Dean of African Leadership Academy on Future Learning Design; CEO of Omega Schools Ghana on Learnit. The What Donors Want podcast interviews funders like the Gates Foundation, Hewlett Foundation & one of my favorites, Segal Foundation.
The storyteller Sarika Bansal has a new podcast—check out interviews with James Mwangi on building Dalberg and Chinny Ogunro on systems change in healthcare—lots of lessons for ed systems!
More lessons from health that we can adapt for ed, from Atul Gawande’s latest for The New Yorker about how Costa Rica transformed outcomes by investing in the basics—community health workers who built relationships with & visited the homes of every citizen.
Bill Gates produced a nice feature video on David Moinina Sengeh, the visionary Minister of Education in Sierra Leone.
Image Sources:
1- Emtempo 2- LA Johnson for Raising Kings 3- Shin Woong-jae/Washington Post
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