Head of Education At Save the Children

Save The Children

Vacancy Announcement

TEAM/PROGRAMME: Myanmar Education Consortium (MEC)

LOCATION: Head Office, Yangon (remote working if not possible)

Grade: NAT 1

Number of Position: 1

Type of Contract: 2 years, Fixed Term (Possible to extend)

The Myanmar Education Consortium (MEC) partners with selected ethnic and monastic education providers to strengthen their capacity to deliver and sustain good quality learning opportunities for hard-to-reach children in Myanmar. MEC provides funding, coordination, technical assistance and research across different complementary education systems to promote continuous improvement of education services and a supportive operating environment for ethnic and monastic education providers. As MEC enters into a new strategy period (2021-25), the programme is expanding in scope and size.

Reporting directly to the Education Director, the Head of Education will oversee the technical education department, contributing to the development and implementation of education initiatives through MEC and across partners. S/he will be responsible for coordinating the work of the education technical leads and education coordinators responsible for delivering direct technical support across MEC’s partners; ensuring that support is of high quality, relevant and contextually appropriate. The Head of Education will also take a key role in liaising with external education stakeholders within the Myanmar context, such as the Education in Emergencies sector to ensure that cross-sector working is utilised to benefit partners.

This role requires an individual that has excellent management skills and is able to work well with a wide array of diverse stakeholders. As well as coordinating and monitoring MEC’s technical education support, the Head of Education will also need to collaborate closely with the additional MEC departments to ensure that monitoring and evaluation, advocacy and planning is approached in a coordinated and cohesive manner.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: Education Director

Direct Reports: 3 Education Technical Leads and 2 Education Coordinators

Financial Approval: Authorise expenditure up to USD 5,000

External Representation: Both regular oral and written interpersonal contact is expected at a variety of levels. Negotiation and representation with senior level representatives including the Ministry of Education (when available) and ethnic education representatives, civil society and development partners is required.

Travel: Frequent (typically over 6 days per month, when possible)

Key accountabilities

Education strategy and quality assurance

Collaborating with the educational technical leads, take a lead role in designing educational strategies and approaches in support of MEC’s overall strategy and partnership approach, in particular leading our technical assistance and policy engagement work related to teacher education and continuous professional development (CPD).
Take a lead role in ensuring the quality of MEC’s educational technical assistance to ethnic and monastic systems in key areas.
Coordinating the work of the education technical leads and education coordinators responsible for delivering direct technical support across MEC’s partners; ensuring that the technical support is of high quality, relevant and contextually appropriate
Develop and maintain strong relationships with a wide range of education actors, identifying opportunities for collaboration in programming, research and policy initiatives in addressing barriers to complementary education systems’ effectiveness and recognition (in collaboration with the MEC Strategy, Policy, Learning and Planning department)
Collaborate with the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Manager in developing approaches to monitoring education access, quality and management, tracking progress against the results frameworks and building partners’ capacity for analysis and monitoring of education participation and quality and evaluation of educational strategies.
Through the education technical leads, support MEC’s partners in key cross-cutting issues, ensuring Child Safeguarding, Gender, Disability and Social Inclusion actions are prioritised and implemented across all partners, providing technical support as required.

Complementary education systems strengthening

Work with the education team to give tailored and high quality support to complementary education systems in the ongoing implementation, monitoring and review of their planned educational improvement strategies and support communication and cross-learning between team members and systems.
Work with the education team to support an ongoing process of identification of professional capacity development needs of partner complementary education systems and implementing appropriate and creative strategies to meet these needs.

Management and teamwork

Line manage, mentor and support the Education Technical Leads and Education Coordinators (and short term consultants as applicable), to support strong team working and manage the education team workplan development and implementation.
Work closely with the Education Director, including some deputising as negotiated.
Take a lead role in preparing the education aspects of MEC quarterly, mid-year and annual reports.

Research and policy engagement

Represent MEC in coordination, policy dialogue and advocacy forums as agreed as part of a whole-team approach (mostly likely these with be groups and events related to MTB-MLE, curriculum and assessment)
Support the identification of opportunities to link MEC partners into policy, advocacy and research initiatives and forums and the identification, development and management of research to inform systems strengthening and policy dialogue.
Work closely with the MEC Strategy, Policy, Learning and Planning department to identify areas of research and policy engagement to be actively involved with.

Budget responsibility

Working closely with the education technical leads, develop and oversee the budget line for ethnic and monastic education system strengthening.
Carry out quarterly budget amendments in line with quarterly work planning sessions.
Liaise with finance team and additional budget holders to ensure best practice is being followed.

Monitoring, Accountability, Evaluation and Learning

Ensure programme learning, external analysis and insights informs and contributes to evidence-based programme planning and policy and advocacy.
Take a lead on and ensure that all education activities align to and contribute towards the programme’s Theory of Change and can be clearly monitored through the overarching Results Framework.
Support the development of quality benchmarks to enhance performance monitoring, ensuring these are used and regularly updated based on programmatic needs and learning from implementation.
Support the development and use of appropriate accountability mechanisms, ensuring the Education team provides timely responses to any feedback and associated follow up, when applicable.

Child Safeguarding Responsibility:

Develop specific and contextual guidance to ensure that the safeguarding of children is incorporated into MEC strategies and children are protected from exploitation, increased vulnerability, or any form of harm or indignity.

General

Comply with Save the Children policies and practice with respect to safeguarding, child protection, code of conduct, health and safety, equal opportunities and other relevant policies and procedures.
Build and maintain optimal working relationships with all programme teams, SCI programme teams and MEC partners, in line with MEC partnership principles.
Ensure that child participation and child safeguarding is integrated into design and implementation of activities, and that children’s voices are represented.

Person specifications

Education:

Master’s Degree (or higher) in a relevant field and/ or professional qualification in education or related field

Professional skills and experience:

At least 6 years’ experience in working in education in Myanmar
Understanding and experience of the Myanmar education system, ideally to include government and non-government systems or programmes.
Understanding of emergency/humanitarian and development contexts, with a preference for experience in both contexts.
Demonstrated skills, experience, and knowledge in education, ideally including multilingual education, curriculum and pedagogy.
Skills and experience in capacity development in education, including mentoring and training.
Practical teaching or training experience would be an advantage

Management and Work Skills

Proficiency in English, Myanmar language and an ethnic Myanmar language would be an advantage
An ability to articulate concepts and ideas related to the education field, make presentations and deliver quality written reports
Ability to analyse information, evaluate options and to think and plan strategically.
Excellent training, facilitation and communication skills
Strong personal organisational skills, including time/task management and ability to meet deadlines and work under pressure
Strong people management skills including mentoring and support **
Strong remote-working and management abilities and self-motivated.

General Skills

Experience and proven ability to create an environment which encourages team-working, including education team members with specific geographical and thematic responsibilities and the wider MEC team

General:

Ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally as assigned.
Interest in and commitment to working alongside others within a dynamic, inter-disciplinary team and taking opportunities for learning and professional development.
Ability and willingness to spend significant blocks of time in the field and to travel domestically, when possible, and internationally as assigned,
Commitment to and understanding of MEC and Save the Children’s aims, values and principles.
Willingness and capability to comply with all relevant Save the Children policies and procedures with respect to health and safety, security and equal opportunities, including the Child Safeguarding Policy.