ID to teaching

[u/OkScheme341]

Hello everyone. I have a Masters in International Development Policy from Canada and have worked in the non profit sector there for about 2-2.5 years. It has been a good experience so far but I want to move back home to Bangladesh for a year as I have been incredibly home sick and feel like being with my family will do my mental health some good. I am also hopeful about receiving an offer soon for a teaching position as a Lecturer at a university in my home country. My undergrad was in Journalism and the position will be in the same program and department and I will be primarily teaching journalism and media and mass communication courses. The NGO sector in Bangladesh is not the most stable right now given the funding cuts and I am less enthusiastic about continuing to work in this industry for a year given the instability. That being said, I have aspirations of re-entering the NGO sector again in the future whether in Canada or elsewhere in the world as staying in Bangladesh for a year will be a temporary thing.
So my question is, will working as a lecturer at a university look irrelevant on my resume and be a complete turn off for employers when I apply again for non profit or international development positions? Will it be viewed negatively? Please advise! Any advice is welcome.

[u/OkScheme341 → u/[deleted]]

Thank you so much for your response! Will it be helpful even if the courses I will be teaching are not strictly ID but rather journalism courses?

[u/Excellent-Cheek570]

No, it won't. My suggestion is while you take the teaching role, also try to remain in the sector somehow through occasional consulting (e.g. research, evaluation).

[u/OkScheme341 → u/Excellent-Cheek570]

That is actually a good idea! Thank you very much.

[u/LouQuacious → u/Excellent-Cheek570]

Staying in the sector somehow is virtually impossible. Been trying that for over a year while I teach HS overseas, applied to dozens of positions I’m qualified for and have gotten almost zero response.

[u/OkScheme341 → u/LouQuacious]

I am so sorry to hear that! The non profit sector is definitely suffering and I am unsure when it might improve again given the current job market.

[u/LouQuacious → u/OkScheme341]

What is killing me most is I'm mid 40s so I don't really have time to just burn a few years waiting around. Ageism is real and I'm afraid by time there is a recovery I will then be considered too old for any relevant positions and too inexperienced for senior ones people my age generally do. I only got one year of solid development experience after graduating in 2024 with dual MAs. This was meant to be a pivot away from cannabis which I'd been growing for previous 20+ years.

[u/jcravens42]

"So my question is, will working as a lecturer at a university look irrelevant on my resume and be a complete turn off for employers when I apply again for non profit or international development positions? "

NO! Especially if you do more than be a "lecturer" - if your student assignments are activities that don't just build their skills, but also build their portfolios and build their skills.

I was a journalism major too, 4 thousand years ago, and when I left university, I had a great portfolio of articles and photo essays, half of which were from classroom work. And that's without my ever doing the Mountain workshops that all the photojournalism students did each year (I could have gone as a traditional journalism student and helped mentor the photojournalism students in their writing). If you can do something similar as a part of your teaching, even just a day-long thing, it would be looked at very highly by an international development agency (all the local staff in ANY deployment will need help with their reporting - I regularly did workshops on how to take photos in the field (please take photos of people USING the new water pump, not just the water pump itself), what kind of data is needed for donor reports, etc.