🪜 5 Steps to Find an Education Job in Latin America/Africa/South or Southeast Asia

Apr 20, 2023

Mainak Roy was a Teach for India Fellow before co-founding Simple Education Foundation (they are hiring!) (photo from SEF).

The most common request I get: help me find a JOB. But my entrepreneur friends say *finding great talent is harder than finding money!* I believe hiring/growing enough strong leaders is the greatest constraint for education reform initiatives to grow in Latin America, Africa & South/Southeast Asia.

So here's my advice for job-seekers - with 5 examples from friends who are awesome role models for how to progress to senior leadership roles in education.

(These tips are based on 11 years of hundreds of coffees/Zooms with people struggling on both sides of the job-hunting/hiring divide).

🚀 1. Teach.

If you want to understand what it really takes to transform education, there’s no better way than to help children/youth to learn. You may also love it & decide you want to lead as a classroom teacher or principal for the rest of your career!

It can be tricky to get a job at a government school without taking certain civil service exams or degrees - but you can apply to teach through a Teach for All partner (they place Fellows at government schools across 60 countries).
Or teach at an innovative private school - like GSF schools or African Leadership Academy, where I taught (who is hiring teachers & other roles!) There are *many* private schools in every country.
Teacher Horizons has jobs at international schools across the world.
To teach English - read this guide to finding these jobs. (US citizens can also apply to Fulbright).

Veda Sunassee & Sharmi Surianarain with colleagues from African Leadership Academy - where Sharmi worked before becoming CIO at Harambee, founding Making Caring Count, & chairing the Metis board. Veda was a Princeton in Africa Fellow at ALA before working his way up to CEO of ALU (Veda 1st, Sharmi 3rd; photo from Instagram).

🚀 2. Start at a Big Organization.

Beyond teaching, there are so many other ways you can help solve the world’s learning crisis. Schools, nonprofits & edtech companies all need talent in areas like:

Finance, Operations & HR
Fundraising & Communications
Curriculum Design
Career & University Guidance
Sales
Government Advocacy

There are *thousands* of organizations out there - but it is easiest to find a job at an older, larger organization because they hire frequently. Such as:

Nonprofits & Companies - like CoSchool in Colombia, Educate! in KE/RW/UG, Taleemabad in Pakistan.
- Apply for Fellowships that pay you to work in ed orgs: Princeton in Africa, Princeton in Asia, EWB, Kumvana.
School Operators - like SPARK in South Africa, Nova Pioneer in Kenya, ALU in Mauritius/Rwanda, TCF in Pakistan.
Government Supporters - like Peepul or Samagra in India, NewGlobe (many countries).
Funders - like Lemann Foundation in Brazil, CSF in India.
Researchers - like J-PAL.

Working at one of these is a good way to strengthen your skills, start to understand the ecosystem around ed & learn what role you want to play in it.

David Moinina Sengeh while at MIT - he got his PhD, co-founded a STEM nonprofit & worked at IBM before becoming Sierra Leone’s Minister of Education (David on right; photo from MIT News). Buy his book, which comes out May 2!

🚀 3. Comb Through Organization Lists.

Now this takes patience - but to find more jobs, you can:

Look through lists of organizations online.
Click on each org’s website.
Find their Careers section to see if any jobs are open.

Use lists like:

Global Schools Forum - which has 83 members in 55 countries.
Networks/accelerators - like AMPLIFY, Metis, Innovated, Ashesi Education Collaborative, PAL, Global School Leaders.
Grantees in portfolios of donors & investors - like Segal, Imaginable Futures, Echidna, Lemann, DGMT, CSF, Tanoto.
You can also go to sites of funder networks & look through those to find funders. Then try to find each one’s list of orgs they give money to (though sometimes they don’t make these public) - IEFG, Elevate Children Funders Group, Venture Philanthropy Networks in: Latin America (Latimpacto), Africa, Asia.

🚀 4. Follow People Who Post Jobs.

LinkedIn is the best for this - if you don’t have a profile, create one.

Follow search firms that recruit for ed orgs & follow the firm’s staff: Society, Kipawa, Shortlist.
I try to re-post jobs when I see them - so Follow me & check my feed regularly (bookmark the link here.) Just in the past week, I shared 46 jobs with EFAC, Sesame Workshop, Gates Foundation, J-PAL, Pemimpim, FAWE, ELMA, UNICEF, Avenues, EOF, IEFG & others. (Recently shared a roundup with 55 jobs.)
Follow my friend Nikunj Agarwal for fellowships & scholarships.

🚀 5. Ask Local Contacts.

Figure out which countries you want to try & work in. Once you narrow, ask people you know in those countries whether they - or anyone they know - is hiring.

Sometimes companies don’t even post JD’s publicly. So people immersed in an ecosystem have the best knowledge of where there are opportunities. Who knows, you may be connected to an org who will like you so much, they will create a new job or consulting opportunity just for you!

Good luck - I can’t wait to see all the impact you will make in education. :)

Advice to add? Are you hiring? Add your tip or job in the comments!

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