Education Specialist

The Opportunity

Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In Nepal and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and future we share. Save the Children expects that anyone associated with it abides by its Safeguarding and other Zero Tolerance Policies. 

The Education Specialist will be responsible for the development of and technical support to high quality child-focused early childhood care and development programs reaching the most vulnerable and deprived. While the position will focus on ECD they will support the wider Education portfolio as wel. They will support the Senior PDQ Advisor to establish and maintain functional collaboration and coordination with government counterparts, external development partners, strategic partners, and donors at the national level. Likewise, they will provide support to maintain communication with donors, members and internal working groups. The position holder will be working closely with Senior PDQ Advisor, education project/program managers/coordinators and other Save the Children departments and field offices to ensure required technical support to SC's field teams and partners is available and timely. They will assist to Senior PDQ Advisor on setting the overall education strategies and high-quality education standards, and knowledge management system in the education theme with a focus on early childhood care and development.

Key Responsibilities:

Program and Project Development (30%):

• Leads in developing new Education projects with a focus on ECD projects, or ECD-related parts of other proposals, in close coordination with Senior PDQ Advisor and consultation with other departments, field offices, and partners. This includes, but is not limited to, developing detailed implementation plans, staffing plans, phased budgets, identifying new partners, etc., in addition to technical narratives and log frames. Ensures project design is linked to SC's country strategic plan and common approaches. 
• Contributes to the identification of partner organizations that have robust and proven technical excellence in Education and ECD.
• Leads the continuous assessment of ECD and other education related program needs, and ensures that these are appropriately reflected in sectoral strategies, proposals, and programs.
• With Awards and Senior PDQ Advisor, spearheads the exploration of additional funding sources to pilot and scale-up proven innovative ECD and other education related  interventions. 
• Supports Senior PDQ Advisor to develop the education strategy, milestones, country annual plan, and country annual review plan. 

Program Quality Assurance and MEAL (40%):

• Provides direct technical support to field teams, e.g. project monitoring, field staff, and partner capacity building, training, etc. 
• Makes a minimum of four monitoring visits annually to assigned education projects.
• Supports research and evaluation efforts by drafting ToRs, supporting with consultant hiring and oversight. Provides analysis of R&E findings. 
• Ensures education projects collect information on the progress towards project outcomes/results, collect information or observations for the variations in these outcomes/results, and draw conclusions/lessons, and take actions to address these conclusions/lessons.
• Provides critical feedback and technical inputs on periodic project reports including baseline, midterm, and final evaluation reports, including annual reports. 
• Leads on standardizations of Education and ECD-related materials, SOPs, training manuals etc.
• Ensures Quality Benchmarks and monitoring tools for education projects are in place, updated as per required, and effectively used in the education projects. 
• Engages in period project reviews, including annual Program Learning Groups. 
• Holds self-responsible for staying current on the latest news, innovations, and adaptations in sector.

Representation, Networking, and Advocacy (25%):

• Ensures strong linkages and coordination amongst line Ministries, strategic partners, external development partners on matters of ECD. 
• Assists Senior PDQ Advisor for donor engagement, linkage, and coordination on ECD.
• With Senior PDQ Advisor, advocates for policy changes and implementation in close collaboration with advocacy counterparts.
• Supports Senior PDQ Advisor in developing and maintaining an in-depth understanding of the ECD sector, including national policies/policy development, key players in government, UN agencies, INGOs and national civil society organizations.
• Actively engages with relevant ECD networks and coalitions at the national level and ensures representation at the regional/district level networks as necessary. 

Capacity Building (5%)

• Assists Senior PDQ Advisor to develop the capacity development plan for education staff in SCI and partners, and organize capacity development initiatives.
• Works with education project teams and partners to identify technical strengths and weaknesses areas and develops plans to address gaps. 

OTHER

• Other tasks as requested by the Senior PDQ Advisor or Director, Programme Development and Quality covering Education more broadly. 

Support the Save the Children Humanitarian responses where appropriate, ensuring timely and quality responses in line with international standards and technical best practice.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Master's degree in Education, international development, Social Sciences, Development Studies, or a related discipline
• Minimum of 7 years of relevant experience in education.
• Demonstrable experience in ECD or other education related programming including designing high quality proposals and implementing and monitoring projects. 
• Experience with INGOs/NGOs/CSOs in education. Experience in child rights programming a plus. 
• Proven experience in strategy development.
• Proven experience with external representation with Government and donors. Experience leading technical working groups (or similar) a plus.
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to present complex issues in a clear and concise manner.
• Ability to write high quality reports and analyse information.
• Excellent spoken and written English and Nepali. 

Desirable

• Experience with EdTech.
• Experience with Climate Change in Education

Required No.(s): 1 (Nepalese Citizen Only)

Contract length: Fixed Term

Location: Kathmandu

The Organisation

We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better healthcare, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realise the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard. 

We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:

• No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday 
• All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
• Violence against children is no longer tolerated 

We know that great people make a great organization, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive workplace where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued. 

Application Information

Please apply using a cover letter and up-to-date CV as a single document. Please also include details of your current remuneration and salary expectations. 

We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our global anti-harassment policy.

Save the Children does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.