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Corporate citizenship

We’re looking for Grade 12s who want to transform education

Do you want to be part of the change? Create a new future? Then start in the classroom and become a teacher: Apply for the Jakes Gerwel Fellowship before 27 July.

The Jakes Gerwel Fellowship nurtures disruptive, high impact, expert teachers. We believe that this will transform our schools to realise the full potential of our children. When all children are given the fair opportunity to learn and develop, we will create a more equitable South Africa.

Last year after a very successful nationwide campaign, we selected our inaugural cohort of Candidate Fellows who have since started their undergraduate studies at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and University of Pretoria (UP).

This year we are looking for another 30 amazing Grade 12s to embark on the incredible journey to become expert teachers, education leaders and social entrepreneurs.

Candidate Fellows will be expected to complete a three-year Bachelor’s degree at UCT or UP and then go on to complete a PGCE to teach in a South African high school.

Prerequisites:

What the Fellowship Programme covers:

Apply HERE before 20:00 on 27 July.

Nominate someone

Do you know talented Grade 12s that are up to the task? Nominate them today and if your nominee is selected as a Candidate Fellow, we’ll gift you R1000! If you work at a school, we’ll also gift your school R1000 to acknowledge the crucial role they play in nurturing potential.

Be quick as applications close on 27 July. Nominate here: http://bit.ly/2018_Nomination

Background:

As a premium scholarship provider, Allan Gray Orbis Foundation has close, country-wide contact with school principals and teachers in identifying South Africa’s brightest young entrepreneurial talent. This extensive engagement revealed a consistent and haunting plea: “Where will South Africa’s next generation of teaching talent come from?”

Over time, there was a dawning realisation that Allan Gray Orbis Foundation had a moral imperative to respond to this call to action. A long-term commitment was needed to address both the educational and entrepreneurial dimensions of our society in enhancing our country’s transformational capacity. There was also the recognition that no education system can ever supersede the capacity of its teachers and this was where the response had to lie.

In April 2017, the Board of Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Endowment gave the commitment to create the Jakes Gerwel Fellowship to honour the legacy of a true high impact teacher who was also the Foundation’s inaugural Chairperson and a close confident to former President Nelson Mandela.

Like many education systems around the world, South Africa must deal with the twin challenges of closing the achievement gap gulf between pupils from under-resourced environments and their wealthier peers, and ensuring that pupils gain the knowledge, skills and values necessary to flourish in the modern economy.  As Matthew Hood, the Chief Executive of the Institute for Teaching, reminds us, failure to do so is “morally indefensible and economically unsustainable”.

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