Could I be a Teacher Leader?

You teach full-time in a partner school for two years. You plan lessons with colleagues, check how learners are progressing and work with families when a child needs extra support. Your school and community also help you identify a local challenge you can work on together.

You can apply without previous classroom experience or a degree in education. Before placement, you practise planning lessons, explaining ideas and managing a classroom. Your degree and grades still need to meet the requirements for your chosen pathway.

Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) starts in primary school, where children are learning to read, write and work with numbers. The STEM pathway is in secondary school, where you teach science and help learners, especially girls, see a future for themselves in STEM.

Cohort 9 welcomes women and men aged 22 to 30 who are Ugandan citizens or refugees living in Uganda. You need a bachelor’s degree in any field, a CGPA of at least 3.5 out of 5, and the ability to speak and write English. You should be ready to teach Primary One in a rural government school in Buliisa and be interested in girls’ education.

For Cohort 9, this pathway is for women aged 22 to 27 who are Ugandan citizens or refugees living in Uganda. You need a STEM bachelor’s degree with a CGPA of at least 3.0 out of 5. Partner schools need Teacher Leaders who can teach Biology, Chemistry or Physics. Be ready to teach in English and take up a partner-school placement.

Start on the Cohort 9 recruitment page. Choose your pathway and follow its eligibility check. The deadline listed for this intake is Saturday, 21 November 2026. Use the recruitment page for the latest intake dates and instructions.

The eligibility check is the first step. If you qualify, check the email address you supplied for instructions on completing the full application. Check your spam or junk folder as well. Follow those instructions and submit the full form to complete your application.

For the primary eligibility check, have your CV ready as a PDF of 300 KB or less. For the full application, gather your academic transcript, referee contact details and an example of a time you took responsibility or helped others solve a problem. Check the instructions on your chosen form for its upload requirements.

Teach For Uganda’s STEM Fellowship services, including registration and training, are free. If someone asks you to pay for a place, contact recruitment@teachforuganda.org.

For Cohort 9, primary Teacher Leaders serve in Buliisa District. STEM Teacher Leaders serve in partner secondary schools. The recruitment team matches placements to school needs. If accessibility, family responsibilities or another circumstance affects where you can serve, raise it with the team early.

Fellows receive a monthly stipend to help with living costs. Schools and communities often help Fellows find housing. Arrangements vary by placement, so ask what is available at your assigned school before you make plans to move.

Teaching and lesson preparation take up much of the week. You also assess learners’ work, receive feedback from a coach and make time for school activities. Depending on what your learners need, that might mean running a reading club, organising a science practical or visiting a family with a colleague.

Teach For Uganda assesses partner schools before placing Fellows. Programme staff visit schools and provide ways to raise concerns. During placement discussions, ask about accommodation, travel and who to contact if a concern arises at your school.

Before school placement, you practise turning curriculum goals into lessons and checking whether learners understand. For example, you might plan how to hear each child read in a primary class or how to let secondary learners test an idea in a science practical.

A coach can observe your lesson, talk through what learners found difficult and help you decide what to try next. Programme staff check in, and other Fellows share what works in their classrooms. You can also raise wellbeing concerns with your programme team.

Yes. Start by asking learners, colleagues and families what they would find useful. A reading club can give children more time with books. A girls’ science club can give learners space to try experiments and meet mentors. Shape the project with people who can help it continue.

Short courses can fit around your placement if they leave time for teaching, preparation and Fellowship training. The secondary STEM pathway asks Fellows to undertake a funded Postgraduate Diploma in Education during their first year. Discuss the study arrangements with recruitment before accepting a placement.

You join Teach For Uganda’s alumni network. Some alumni continue teaching. Others take what they learned about children, schools and families into policy, enterprise or community organisations. Meet the alumni and explore their work.

You leave with concrete examples of leadership. You may have used assessment results to redesign a lesson, worked with a head teacher to solve a problem or brought parents together around attendance. These are experiences you can draw on in education, STEM and other fields.

Yes. If you or your family have questions about the two-year commitment, email the recruitment team. Tell them which pathway interests you and what you would like to understand about day-to-day life, placement or training.