Developing STEM teachers. Inspiring girls. Strengthening Uganda’s future.

The Teach For Uganda STEM Fellowship is a pilot program implemented under the Leaders in Teaching Program, a flagship initiative supported by the Mastercard Foundation and led by the Luigi Giussani Foundation through a consortium of education partners.

The Fellowship responds to a clear and urgent need: Uganda needs more capable, committed, and well-supported STEM teachers, especially women, who can help learners build the skills, confidence, and imagination required for a rapidly changing world.

Through this pilot, Teach For Uganda is recruiting and developing young leaders with strong STEM backgrounds, placing them in secondary schools, and supporting them to become effective teachers, mentors, and role models for learners, especially girls.

This is more than a teaching program. It is a leadership pathway designed to strengthen STEM education, expand opportunity, and help build a stronger teacher pipeline for Uganda’s secondary education system.
Stem
Untitled-design-4

Why STEM Matters

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are no longer optional skills. They shape how young people understand the world, solve problems, create opportunities, and participate in the future of work.

Yet many learners, especially girls in underserved communities, continue to face barriers that limit their participation and confidence in STEM. These barriers are not only about access to subjects. They are also about who teaches, how learning happens, and whether learners can see themselves represented in the fields they are being encouraged to pursue.

The STEM Fellowship is designed to help change that.

By bringing more young women and high-potential STEM graduates into classrooms, the program is helping learners encounter teachers who can make STEM practical, exciting, relevant, and possible.

About the Pilot

The STEM Fellowship is an intentional pilot under the Leaders in Teaching Program. It allows Teach For Uganda to test, learn, and generate evidence on how a leadership-based Fellowship model can contribute to secondary education, with a particular focus on STEM.

Through this pilot, Fellows will teach in secondary schools while receiving structured preparation, coaching, and leadership development support. They will be equipped not only to deliver content but to create classrooms where learners ask questions, test ideas, solve problems, and build confidence.

The pilot also supports Teach For Uganda’s broader efforts to strengthen the teacher pipeline by identifying, preparing, and mentoring leaders ready to serve in classrooms that need them most.

Our Approach

Teach For Uganda believes teaching is leadership. In the STEM Fellowship, this means developing teachers who can combine subject mastery with classroom leadership, creativity, and a deep commitment to learner growth. The program focuses on:

Recruiting high-potential STEM graduates and young professionals

Supporting young women to enter and lead in STEM teaching

Preparing Fellows through training, coaching, and continuous professional development

Promoting learner-centered, inquiry-based, and practical STEM teaching

Building learners’ confidence, especially girls, in science and technology subjects

Supporting Fellows to lead community-rooted solutions that improve learning

Through this approach, the STEM Fellowship helps move STEM education beyond memorization. It supports classrooms where learners connect concepts to real-life challenges and begin to see themselves as innovators, problem-solvers, and future leaders.

As a pilot, the program is also a learning platform. What Teach For Uganda learns through this work will shape how the model can be refined, strengthened, and expanded to support more schools and learners in the future.

What Makes the STEM Fellowship Different

The STEM Fellowship is not only about placing teachers in classrooms. It is about developing leaders who can influence learning, shift mindsets, and contribute to long-term systems change.

STEM subject focus

Preparing teachers who can support learning in critical science and mathematics-related subjects.

Girls’ leadership

increasing the visibility and participation of young women in STEM education.

Classroom impact

Improving how STEM is taught, experienced, and understood by learners.

Leadership development

preparing Fellows to lead beyond the classroom.

Systems learning

Generating evidence from the pilot to inform future growth and scale.

Who We Are Looking For

The STEM Fellowship is designed for young leaders who believe that education can change Uganda’s future.

We are looking for graduates and professionals with STEM backgrounds who are ready to teach, lead, learn, and serve in underserved communities.

Ideal candidates are:

  • Passionate about education equity
  • Strong in STEM knowledge and willing to grow as teachers
  • Committed to supporting learners, especially girls
  • Open to coaching, feedback, and continuous learning
  • Ready to serve in secondary school classrooms
  • Motivated to become part of a wider movement for education change

This Fellowship is especially committed to creating pathways for young women in STEM to lead, teach, and inspire the next generation.

solution1
STEM2

The Leaders in Teaching Program is a flagship initiative supported by the Mastercard Foundation and implemented through a consortium led by the Luigi Giussani Foundation. The program brings together partners working to strengthen secondary education in Uganda through teacher recruitment, training, leadership, motivation, and system-level support.

Teach For Uganda’s role in the program focuses on strengthening the teacher pipeline by recruiting, preparing, and mentoring STEM teachers who demonstrate both subject-mastery and leadership potential.

Through the STEM Fellowship pilot, Teach For Uganda is applying over a decade of experience in leadership development and classroom placement to a new and urgent area of need: secondary STEM education.

Our Vision for the Pilot

The STEM Fellowship is the beginning of an important shift for Teach For Uganda.

It expands our work into secondary education, deepens our focus on STEM, and strengthens our commitment to girls’ education and leadership. It also allows us to contribute to national education priorities by preparing teachers who are effective from the outset and are supported in their continued growth.

Our goal is to learn from this pilot, strengthen the model, and build a pathway that can support more learners, more schools, and more communities over time.

Because the future of Uganda will be shaped not only by how many children enter school, but by what they learn, who leads that learning, and whether every child can see a future worth reaching for.

Disclosure Statement

All services offered under the Teach For Uganda STEM Fellowship are free of charge. There are no fees associated with registration, training, scholarships, or any other service provided under the program. If you have any questions, concerns, or wish to report any issue related to the STEM Fellowship, please contact Teach For Uganda through our official communication channels or email us at recruitment@teachforuganda.org