Teach For All’s Future of Work Initiative: Empowering all youth to thrive and lead in a changing world
Ensuring equitable and excellent education for All.
While every child has enormous potential, education systems around the world are not providing all of them with the learning opportunities that will prepare them for the world they’ll soon inherit. Teach For All’s mission is to ensure that every child has access to the education, support, and opportunity they need to shape a brighter future.
Across the globe, schools - especially those in disadvantaged communities - often lack the resources to prepare children for the chance of a better future. Young people across the world aren’t able to identify or acquire the skills needed for today’s job market, contributing to a global skills gap and exacerbating youth unemployment. Many schools and systems are also not preparing students to solve major global challenges such as climate change and growing social inequality and fragmentation.
Teach For All supports and connects a global network of independent organisations working around the world to ensure that every child has access to an equitable and excellent education. Each organisation in the network is locally led, and enlists its nation’s diverse and promising leaders to teach in high-need areas for two years, and, in the long-term, drive systemic changes from within and outside of the education sector.
Dr. Tarek Chehidi is Teach For All’s Global Head of the Future of Work and Public Sector. He works with Teach For All teams and network partners to design and implement the Future of Work Initiative and also to develop knowledge and learning experiences to foster impactful engagement with the public sector across the network.
“While all children have enormous potential, education systems around the world are failing to provide many with the learning opportunities that will prepare them for the future they’ll soon inherit. This is especially true for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
“We envision a world where educators, policymakers, parents, and students are working together to ensure that their communities’ children have the foundation they need to shape a better future for themselves and all of us.”
The world is challenging and is changing rapidly
The world is challenged by complexity and influenced by fast-evolving technology and constant shifts in the way we live, work and learn. Marginalised communities are disproportionately affected by climatic changes which directly affect economic, racial, global and generational disparities. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to take part in career development activities or to access STEM and financial education than students who have access to more resources and opportunities.
The future of learning and work
There is a challenge for many children with accessing opportunities to learn about the world of work both today and in the future. At times, learning can seem abstract, but learning about careers can help students develop a sense of purpose which can help inform, motivate and guide them in career exploration and access to the future workspace. OECD research found that less than half of 15-year-olds have access to employment support through a career counsellor in school, visiting a job fair or participating in an internship. It also found that children would have liked to have more support accessing or developing employment skills.
Compounding these challenges is the fact that much of the knowledge about the world of work is not available to educators. Because this knowledge is constantly changing, however, building collaborative relationships between schools, educators, companies and business leaders can help bring this knowledge into teaching and learning.
For instance, STEM is not just about what happens in a classroom or a lab. In Spain, for example, an alumnus of Teach For All network partner Empieza por Educar and his students have identified a need for recycling in their community. To address it, they have worked with the local business community to implement a curriculum that includes hands-on learning about the circular economy and climate change, among other subjects, and provide them with the tools to become agents of change, while also developing entrepreneurial and employability skills. Through a project called Funghi Thinking, the students have the opportunity to demonstrate what they learn in the real world by using coffee remains to grow mushrooms - which are later used and sold.
Towards a brighter future for children
Teach For All wants to see career readiness becoming part of mainstream education so that every child can access learning opportunities that will prepare them for the future world of work which is rapidly changing the way we live, work and learn.
Teach For All believes that helping young people grow as leaders is critical to supporting them to thrive in their careers and as citizens of their communities and countries. Developing this leadership includes learning to be aware of inequity and opportunity in the world around them, gaining the skills and mindsets to create opportunities for themselves and future generations, and an orientation towards equity and learning to take collective action toward shared goals to create positive change in their own lives and the lives of others.
Biography:
Tarek has over twenty years of experience in education across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. He is a recognized leader in developing and implementing innovative educational solutions, ICT in education policy and reform, education strategies, strengthening the capacity of ministerial leaders, creating regional platforms for cooperation and policy dialogue, and enabling transformative partnerships across the ecosystem stakeholders. Before joining Teach For All, Tarek worked with several organizations including Results For Development, the Association for the Development of Education in Africa, GESCI, and the Ministry of Education of Tunisia where he served as an advisor to the Minister between 2002 and 2011.
Tarek served on UNESCO Expert Group on Best Practices in Mobile Learning, the joint ITU-UNICEF- UNESCO Working Group on School Connectivity, UNICEF’s GIGA Advisory Group and the Digital Learning Working Group. He was a member of the team of experts that drafted the African Union’s Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2016-2025. Tarek has deep experience supporting young social entrepreneurs in Tunisia and across Africa and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Area Studies from Sophia University (Japan). In 2008, Tarek was made Knight of the National Order of Merit for contribution to education in Tunisia.