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Making a difference: The EMBA alumni putting expert teachers in classrooms globally

Published

Ahead of World Teachers' Day, our alumni Riz Ahmed tells the story of EqualEd, a social enterprise he set up to deliver education around the globe.

After visiting schools in East Africa and India, Riz was moved by what he saw: a significant lack of teachers and the impact on students eager to learn. He talks about his motivation for setting up EqualEd, how it is making its mark in the world, and, in the 20th anniversary of our Executive MBA, how studying at Saïd Business School is helping him succeed:

'Our vision is a world without learning poverty, and our mission is to equalise the access, quality and affordability of education globally. We are a community-building platform, focused on addressing the global shortage of teachers - the UN predicts nearly 70 million new teachers will be needed by 2030.

'EqualEd is harnessing the power of volunteers, powered by technology. Volunteers can be anyone who is expert in a subject, and we operate three key programmes:

  • Volunteachers: connecting subject experts with classrooms around the world.
  • Teacher Training: resources and development opportunities for local teachers, led by some of the world’s experts.
  • Hub Development: building and running community-based, digitally-connect learning centres for entire communities.

'I developed EqualEd because I saw a need. I visited schools across East Africa and India and I saw the lack of teacher numbers and quality and the urgent need for teacher development and capacity building. Frankly, I was moved by what I saw. And I realised I was in a strong place to make a difference. 

'I come at this not as an educator. I am a finance and operations guy. But I worked at the world’s largest private school group, GEMS Education and I became the Chief Financial Officer and Group Chief Operating Officer of that group. From my background in education, I believe there are enough teachers globally to help bridge this gap - but social mobility is an issue. There is inequality in education access, quality and affordability. But I have an overarching belief that, whatever the problem, education is the solution.

'In my GEMS role, I visited schools around the world, which opened my eyes to the problems and the solutions. One day, in an English class in Hyderabad, India, I opened the text book of a 10-year-old girl. Her handwriting was beautiful and sentence structure was perfect. When I asked her name and how old she was, she could not speak a word of English. Her English classes were arts classes, where she would copy from the board. The fact was, her teacher was not an English teacher, but a Maths teacher, teaching English because of an acute shortage of teachers.

Equal education means equal opportunities. It means an equal chance to better yourself and the community around you.

Riz Ahmed.

Founder and CEO: EqualEd.

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'I left my role at GEMS, enrolled at Oxford Saïd and started working on the solution - which would eventually become EqualEd. Before I started my Executive MBA, I began reaching out to the school’s alumni, to help me explore solutions. I must have had over 100 calls and meetings before EqualEd’s first lesson and about 40 of them were with Oxford Saïd alumni and faculty, as well as from the broader university. One was with a classmate who owned his own US law practice and offered to do all our charity registration work. That was a great help.

'I am so grateful for all the support I received at Oxford Saïd. The school has helped me – finding solutions but also giving me access to its ecosystem of intellectuals and resources. The Ideation Lab programme run by the Entrepreneurship Centre was a great way to analyse the problem in more detail, so the solution could be more targeted. I have leveraged the networks to help EqualEd grow, for example, our Malawi launch was facilitated by a classmate who is a Malawi diplomat.

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'Our programmes are in the early stages, but we have delivered lessons to schools in Malawi, Pakistan and Uganda. Many of the children sit in classes of 50+ students with limited access to subject-expert teachers. EqualEd provides an opportunity for them to connect with some of the best teachers in the world. The technology is nothing new, we increase the adoption of existing technology to take volunteer teachers (volunteachers) from their home to a school on the other side of the world. Not an expensive platform with high-level requirements - using existing and widespread technology in new ways, increasingly accessibility.

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'Education can become the number one method of poverty alleviation: to boost knowledge and broaden access to skills can to lead more meaningful lives, uplifting whole communities. For me, the highlight has been meeting many of the students and staff in our partner schools around the world, and having the ability to connect meaningfully and engage with them Our vision is to become one of the world’s foremost education charities, recognised as a leader in teacher training and development, and community-based learning programmes, leading research, conversation and innovation in global education.'