Advisor – Education (HQ – Dublin, Ireland) At Concern Worldwide

Job Title: Education Advisor**

Reports to: Senior Education Advisor**

Liaises with: Other units in the Strategy, Advocacy and Learning department, Country Offices, International Programmes, Emergency, Fundraising and Communications Directorates.**

Manages: N/A**

Job location: Dublin. (remote working for COVID). Up to 30% overseas travel is a part of this role.

Pay Band: Band 5

Contract: Permanent

Job Purpose: To support effective education programming in fragile and conflict-affected states, emergency and development contexts, through the provision of technical and strategic support to country programmes on education access, quality and wellbeing, and through the documentation of learning and best practice.

Concern Worldwide is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to the reduction of suffering and the elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries. Concern is headquartered in Dublin with other principal offices in London, New York, Belfast, Seoul and in each of the countries of operation.

Concern Worldwide’s Education programme aims to improve the lives of extremely poor and vulnerable children in a sustainable way by increasing access to quality primary education and supporting child wellbeing.

The Education Advisor will sit within the Strategy, Advocacy and Learning (SAL) team and closely liaise with the other Advisers in the head office (WASH, Livelihoods, Health, Nutrition, Protection, Equality etc). The adviser’s primary responsibility is to ensure that Concern country programmes are enabled to deliver high-quality Education interventions. S/he will be expected to provide technical support to Concern’s Education work across the range of countries in which Concern works—emergency, fragile/ transitional and stable development contexts—with a special focus on the inclusion of those living in extreme poverty. S/he also contributes to organizational learning through documentation of best practices and development of tools/ resources designed for Concern programme staff in the field.

The Education Advisor will be an active part of Concern’s global Education team. Up to 30% international travel is anticipated for this position. This position will specifically support Francophone countries and therefore the ability to work in French is an essential requirement.

Key Responsibilities:

· Provide remote and in person technical and strategic support on education access, quality and wellbeing, to country teams to ensure programmes are designed, implemented, monitored, and evaluated to maximise positive impact on the extreme poor and children affected by humanitarian emergencies;

· Build the technical capacity of Concern country teams and partner staff through formal training, webinars, remote mentoring, and production and sharing of key technical resources.

· Synthesize and document practical evidence and learning from our programmes; identify ways to apply it in a timely fashion to improve policy and practice within and beyond Concern.

· Support and develop relationships with other agencies and networks in the area of education in general, including research institutes, technical working groups, coordination mechanisms, donors and represent Concern in national, regional and international fora as required.

· Contribute to the implementation of Concern’s Education strategy across both development and humanitarian contexts and develop further Concern’s thinking on the role of education in reducing and responding to conflict, climate change and hunger in the countries in which we work, including education initiatives within other sectors (eg: Adult Literacy and Numeracy within Livelihoods Programmes)

· Support Fundraising and the New Business Development Directorates to develop relationships with donors and support the development of new education proposals in line with the organizational strategic plan.

· Support the Advocacy unit to feed into international policy discussions related to Education access, quality and wellbeing in developing contexts and humanitarian response.

· Support the prioritization, design, implementation and dissemination of operational research undertaken within Concern programmes – in collaboration with field teams and research partners.

· Support the recruitment of country programme education staff and engage in multi-sectoral/ inter-departmental initiatives such as staff induction, M&E guidance, etc.

· Potentially be deployed to support emergency responses for up to six weeks.

Skills and Experience Required:

Essential:

· A post graduate degree in Education or related field (eg: Development, Social Sciences)

· A minimum of four years’ experience working in the area of Education in an NGO, development or humanitarian agency, two of which should have been based in Sub Saharan Africa, Asia or the Middle East.

· Strong understanding and experience in at least two education technical areas such as Education in Emergencies, Continuous Teacher Professional Development, Non-specialised Psycho-Social Support, School-Related Gender Based Violence, Adult Literacy etc.

· Strong understanding of the barriers to education faced by extreme poor and those affected by humanitarian crisis.

· A strong understanding of inequality and protection issues in relation to education programmes.

· Excellent interpersonal and organisational skills; works well as part of a multi-disciplinary team. Adaptable to evolving work priorities and schedules.

· Willing to travel overseas for up to 30% of working time.

· Ability to communicate and write well in both English and French.

· Keen to learn and promote learning.

Desirable:

· Experience in analysing and processing data; interest in new technologies that support data collection and knowledge transfer.

· Experience working with EiE coordination mechanisms.

· Experience working in integrated, multi-sectoral programmes including social protection, livelihoods, nutrition, health, protection and WASH. Familiarity with social and behaviour change approaches.