A Report from Lead For Ghana
Since September 2018, the incredible work of ZEN Petroleum has enabled Lead For Ghana to live true to its vision and mission, working to eliminate educational inequity in Ghana.
According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), although 91% of children in Ghana enroll in primary school, about 48% fail to matriculate to senior high school and only 16% get into university. Lead For Ghana is a local not-for-profit organisation working assiduously to change this narrative. Through a two-year teaching fellowship, the organisation is committed to raising leaders to affect systemic changes to make excellent education accessible to all children irrespective of their economic background.
ZEN’s financial assistance facilitated professional development sessions for 26 fellows in the Volta Region and 35 fellows in the Northern Region in 2018. During professional development sessions, trained staff, experts and industry leaders are taken to the various regions regularly, to organise leadership training sessions to equip the fellows with the extra support required to tackle a myriad of challenges that hinder teaching, academic success and mindset development.
In 2019, Lead For Ghana was able to successfully organise its recruitment events in Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Cape Coast, University for Development Studies, the University of Ghana and Ashesi University due to ZEN’s support. These recruitment events offer the organisation an opportunity to meet, educate and market its vision to hundreds of university students. Through this, the organisation auspiciously recruited 33 brilliant university graduates into its 2019 leadership development program. These fellows are currently serving students across 3 districts and 12 schools in the Northern Region.
According to the data gathered between 2015 (before Lead For Ghana fellows were placed in partner schools) through to 2019, the pass rate in the BECE recorded for the partner schools in the Northern and Volta Regions has risen from 38% to 92% in the subject areas fellows taught. ZEN contributed to the organization realizing this goal. Also, through the support received, the organisation has been able to encourage fellows to engage in self-driven initiatives as young leaders. These fellows have mobilized resources as a result to construct libraries, they’ve led book drives and organised various field trips for their students in the communities they find themselves in.
For instance, fellows from the 2019 cohort (Regina Okyere Darko and Lucky Adeline Aanomah) at Dakpema M/A Junior High School, noticing the lack of computers in the school, coordinated with the headteacher and parents to organise a trip to an IT institute in Tamale in an effort to practicalise the learning of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Regina and Lucky are currently working with the Tamale ICT Center to provide computers for the school to facilitate the learning of ICT.
It is evident from the impact garnered so far that the Alumni of the program, students and the community have benefited from ZEN’s financial assistance. Mr. William Tewiah (MD, ZEN Petroleum) impacted the fellows during Lead For Ghana’s annual masterclass to strive for excellence. Alumni have championed various education-oriented not-for-profit organisations and businesses as a result of the program and lesson learned from Mr. William Tewiah.
Lead For Ghana is grateful to ZEN for helping to groom leaders for educational equity.
