Strategic Education Advisor Early Childhood and Primary Education At Flemish Association for Development Cooperation and Technical Assistance

Hello! We’re excited to see you found your way to this job opening. That must mean you share our ambition to ensure learners around the world enjoy their fundamental human right to quality education, without exception. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

But first things first. Allow us to introduce ourselves, drawing on the great mystery behind our name. Since our establishment in 1982, ‘VVOB’ has evolved from a complex (Dutch) acronym to a stand-alone concept meaning education for development:

VVOB stands for ‘commitment’ – to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

VVOB stands for ‘integrity’ and ‘mutual respect’ – in working with our partner organisations across 10 countries / three continents.

VVOB stands for ‘quality’ and ‘innovation’ – of everything we do in our effort to improve education worldwide.

Do you still feel like you are in the right place? Great, because we are hiring a Strategic Education Advisor for our programmes in early childhood and primary education.

Purpose of the function

You are responsible for providing strategic and technical advice and support for the successful implementation of the VVOB programmes in early childhood and primary education, with a special focus, interest and experience in online and blended professional development for educators.

You contribute to achieving VVOB’s ambition and values by developing and supporting the implementation and evaluation of capacity development trajectories for professionals in the education sector, with a special focus on strengthening professional development systems for educators.

You play a leading role in our internal and external knowledge development and learning, by:

• initiating and coordinating internal capacity development by assessing the learning needs of the team and providing training and coaching to colleagues
• supporting the development and implementation of our research agenda
• cooperating actively in the search for new sources of donorship for VVOB and in the preparation of project proposals

You build and maintain effective relationships with all people involved in the interventions, from senior government officials to CSO partners to VVOB team members and must help all partners to adapt the intervention as implementation lessons are learnt, while keeping an eye on the results to be achieved.

You report to the Country Programmes Manager.

What will you do?

• You provide strategic advice, information, and guidance to VVOB and VVOB’s government and CSO partners in line with policy trends, new developments and the latest research and thinking in education and international development, including online and blended learning; and learning through play pedagogies for ECE and primary education.
• You take up a variety of roles in the capacity development process according to the needs, particular situations, and phases of the programme.
• You initiate and follow up on development of online training and related e-learning materials.
• You create and manage partnerships and strong networks with relevant partners, institutions and organisations and are actively engaged in expanding VVOB’s funding base (liaising with potential donors, design/ develop relevant and scalable projects)
• You contribute to internal and external knowledge development and learning, by systemising lessons learned and sharing pro-actively lessons learned between partners, colleagues and other VVOB country teams.
• You advise VVOB team as well as partners in terms of instructional design of online learning materials such as self-study courses and micro-learning modules.

If you’re our Strategic Education Advisor, your workweek at the office will include the following highlights:

• You conceptualise capacity development trajectories for teacher educators related to online and blended professional development, and workshop this with colleagues.
• Subsequently you support the internal capacity development of the VVOB team to facilitate effective blended modalities.
• You have a meeting with VVOB’s M&E advisor and technical service providers to streamline reporting between the Learning Management System and VVOB’s digital M&E system.
• You have a meeting with the Country Programmes Manager and the Operation Manager where you and the other Strategic Education Advisors present your plan for capacity building for the VVOB team.
• You present one of our research papers in an online forum on Teacher Development
• You meet with partners to advise on their learning management system development efforts, where applicable.
• You strengthen and build functionalities of the VVOB learning management system (https://learning.vvob.org.za/)

Who are you?

Qualifications, experience & competencies you bring to our team:

• Master’s degree in education in a relevant field or equivalent through experience
• At least 5 years of working experience in capacity building of teacher educators, teachers and/or school leaders, of which at least 2 years in the international development sector
• Proven experience (min 2 years) with adult blended and/or online learning trajectories.
• Theoretical and practical knowledge and experience with teacher education in formal education systems.
• Experience in developing project proposals for donor applications and research projects for existing projects.
• Experience with needs assessment, development and delivery of internal capacity development.
• Knowledge/experience in, pre-primary education, learning through play and/or early grade numeracy and/or early grade reading are an asset.
• English proficiency CEFR Level 1.

Matching competences

VVOB core competences:

• Cooperation
• Result Orientation
• Continuous Improvement

Function specific competencies:

• Strategic Networking & Partnership Building
• Persuasiveness
• Creativity
• Vision building
• Problem Analysis & Judgement

What we’re offering:

• A full-time contract until 31/12/2026. This will be a local contract for national candidates or an expat contract for international candidates.
• An attractive compensations package with medical aid and children school fee allowance.
• A dynamic working environment in an international context.
• An exciting job in a growing organization with varied responsibilities and opportunities for professional development.
• The position is based in Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa.