Transforming Employability for Social Change in East Africa phase 2

The first phase of the TESCEA partnership has laid the foundations – through knowledge, networks, skills and tools – to enable universities across East Africa to produce graduates who have the skills and competencies that local employers and communities need to solve real-world problems.

The TESCEA model​

• Motivates academics to teach differently​
• Rapidly improves the relevance and quality of taught courses​
• Builds new and lasting relationships with business and communities – for practical learning and more relevant skills​
• Gives students the skills and confidence to think critically and solve problems. ​

Phase 1 with 4 universities​

• Reached 3,800 students​
• Trained 565 academics to become facilitators of transformative and student-centred learning and embed gender responsive approaches​
• Redesigned over 200 courses in 100+ departments​
• Fostered policy and practice change across institutions. 39 policies and process guidelines revised or created. ​
• Spanned disciplines and subjects from agriculture (soil, livestock, agri-business, extension), education, medicine, business administration, accounting, marketing, engineering sociology, economics, community & rural development, ethics, data & computer science, entrepreneurship

We know that​

• Lecturers are teaching differently: embedding critical thinking and problem-solving skills and making their classrooms more inclusive and gender-responsive. ​
• Students felt more engaged in their learning, more confident at participating in class.​
• Employers and communities became more engaged in the teaching and learning process and valued their universities differently.​

Learning from phase 1 and the TESCEA model and materials indicate that it can drive and support change at much greater scale.

Deepening impact and scaling the model​

By 2030 our ambition is to reach​

• 70,000 learners ​
• 8,000 tertiary instructors and lecturers ​
• Across seven countries ​
• And to re-design at least 3,250 courses that are clearly aligned to jobs and business opportunities.

In the next phase (to 2026) we plan to ​

1. Integrate TVET institutions​
2. Leverage new expertise and financing for youth business creation​
3. Pilot use of new digital technologies, including AI, both as tools for instruction and to focus on critical new skills for learners​

To do this we will​

1. Ensure it is well aligned to employment and business creation in specific, high potential sectors​
2. Ensure we have the learning mechanisms and programme agility to adapt to changing needs and emerging opportunities.​
3. Understand, spot and respond to opportunities to ‘tip the system’ towards positive change​

Would you like to learn more or get involved? Please reach out to our Director of Programmes, Jon Harle.