ESL Jobs in Africa Teach English in Africa

Teaching English in Africa can be much more than a job. It can be a very rewarding experience that can lead to personal growth and can be combined with humanitarian position. Teachers need to bear in mind though that conditions can be challenging at times and many schools are under equipped, some with no materials to base teaching on.

Africa Education Initiative (AEI)

Students in Senegal reading from new textbooks. Credit: R. Nyberg, USAID/Senegal.

Primary school enrollments in African countries are among the lowest in the world. Education in most of Africa is adversely affected by limited funds and lack of adequate numbers of teachers, classrooms, and learning materials. President Bush’s Africa Education Initiative (AEI) is a $600 million multi-year initiative that focuses on increasing access to quality basic education in Africa through scholarships, textbooks, and teacher training programs.

Ambassadors Girls’ Scholarship Program

In Africa, girls account for 55 percent of the approximately 40 million primary school-aged children who are not enrolled in school. AEI is working to bridge this gender gap by providing 550,000 scholarships by 2010 to African girls at the primary and secondary levels, so that they can grow up to play positive roles in the education, political, and economic sectors of their countries. Support may include tuition, books, uniforms, and other essentials needed to ensure continued access to education. Scholarship recipients also benefit from mentoring activities that promote self-development and provide positive role models.

Textbooks and Learning Materials

The AEI textbook program will address the shortage of learning materials in many African countries. In partnership with African institutions and American minority serving institutions, AEI will develop and distribute 15 million textbooks and related learning and teaching materials. This program emphasizes relevant content, institutional capacity building, and the long-term sustainability of the partnerships between African institutions and American counterparts. 

Teacher Training

The pursuit of universal access to education places enormous stress on already burdened education systems in Africa. Recruiting, training, and supporting enough teachers to provide quality learning can be particularly challenging. To meet this challenge, AEI is developing, promoting, and expanding innovative methods for training more that 920,000 teachers and administrators to improve the quality of learning for millions of African children.

Scholarship recipients in northern Mali. Credit: USAID/Mali.

Working through USAID mission education programs, the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help, and African and international nongovernmental organizations, teachers upgrade their skills though pre-service and in-service training programs.

AEI supports a focus on HIV/AIDS mitigation and prevention and increases the capacity of African education systems to manage the impacts of HIV/AIDS on teachers and students. Many of the scholarship and teacher training programs include HIV/AIDS prevention and life skills curricula. 

The initiative also increases parent and community involvement in children’s education through such activities as sponsoring reading programs and strengthening parent associations. This will help schools and school systems become more transparent and responsive to the needs of civil society. 

Under the second phase of AEI, which will begin in fiscal year 2007, new components will be added including outreach to marginalized populations such as orphans and vulnerable children and out-of-school youth; construction and rehabilitation of schools; and use of technologies including information technologies and interactive radio instruction. Over the life of AEI (2002-2010), 80 million African children will benefit. 

To implement AEI, USAID works closely with African ministries of education and higher education institutions, local and international NGOs, and the private sector. AEI also seeks to strengthen and extend development partnerships between the United States and Africa by actively engaging African leaders and educators, the international development community, and U.S. interest groups.