Supporting institutions through the set up of Career Services

Unique to the Collaborative is the all-year-round engagement and support system both online and in-person set up to keep collaborators engaged and connected after the June workshops. In September this year, the Collaborative Webinar Series was launched to create an online platform for continuous learning and sharing of best practices in different areas of university management, administration, and teaching.

The first in the series for September was hosted by Mrs. Abigail Welbeck, Director of Career Services at Ashesi University. The weekly 1-hour webinars focused on four key practices of the career services office in Ashesi; The Corporate Council and Employers Forum, the 4-year Career Service Curriculum, Experiential Learning, and Setting up Career Fairs.

The webinars, initially developed around workgroups, are advertised through the Education Collaboratives media, and is open to all collaborators, and educators on the continent.

“The Education Collaborative this year was immensely insightful and engaging but what is even more intriguing was the great intentionality to create connections and harness change through specific working groups following the collaborative. I led a group on Career Services and Industry Engagement with four (4) online meetings to delve deeper into the topics I presented during the workshop, and to provide constructive guidance to these other institutions as they implement some of these systems in their institutions. This is the exact kind of support system we need as a united group to create the positive and structural change we want to see in Africa and I have to applaud the Education Collaborative team for this.”- Abigail Welbeck.

“We employ bits and pieces of these practices at Palm. Students at Palm go through compulsory internships before they can graduate but we don’t have assigned career advisors. I will introduce exit strategy, intentional networking, contract negotiations and more practices I have learned here.” – Dr. Peter Okantey, President & Founder, Palm Institute.

“At Marshalls College, only final year students are engaged by employers before they graduate. Our goal now, after going through these webinars is to set up a career services office at Marshalls to engage students from first-year to fourth-year.” – Forster Junior Shitsi, Marshalls College.