Education Technical Advisor - East Africa

The IRC seeks an Education Technical Advisor (TA). This role will have a primary geographic focus on the East Africa Region to guide on program design, provide direct technical support, and build technical capacity to implement, measure and continuously improve education programs in IRC country programs in East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, and Tanzania). To ensure quality programming towards impacting the lives of children and youth affected by conflict and crisis through IRC’s work, the Education Technical Advisor will: support country programs to design programs and projects that are aligned to the IRC’s outcomes and evidence framework / theories of change / core indicators; lead technical design processes of proposals and write technical narrative as needed; review and ensure technical quality of proposals; input into proposal go/no go decisions and pre-positioning; analyze data to inform course correction; conduct technical trainings and ongoing technical coaching, share cross-context learning with country program staff; design, review and share program-specific tools; support senior technical country program recruitment and capacity--building.

This position involves frequent travel, reflecting the regular requests and demand for additional in-person TA support for education assessment, design, start-up, and implementation. The Education TA will support projects or country teams across IRC that require additional support in education in emergencies, including through deployments.

Requirements

Education: Master’s/post-graduate degree in education, education psychology, social work, human development or relevant field or equivalent combination of education and experience is required. Participate in ongoing training courses and share knowledge and skill sets within the unit.

Work Experience: A minimum of 6-8 years’ experience of implementing and/or managing large Education programs and teams is required, within a humanitarian or international development setting, as are at least 2-3 years acting in an advisory capacity on education programming. Education work experience in East Africa is required. Experience in technical tools and materials development, monitoring and evaluation, and research in relation to education is highly desired. Experience in strategy development and working across sectors or disciplines is highly desired.

• Demonstrated Skills and Competencies: Demonstrated expertise in education program design, monitoring and evaluation, with the ability to turn concepts and strategy into measurable action. Demonstrated expertise in youth programming, literacy, and/or numeracy preferred. Strong verbal and written communication skills. Demonstrated commitment to renewing and maintaining currency with best practices.
  

Language Skills: Fluency in English is a non-negotiable requirement; proficiency in Swahili an advantage.

The IRC seeks an Education Technical Advisor (TA). This role will have a primary geographic focus on the East Africa Region to guide on program design, provide direct technical support, and build technical capacity to implement, measure and continuously improve education programs in IRC country programs in East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, and Tanzania). To ensure quality programming towards impacting the lives of children and youth affected by conflict and crisis through IRC’s work, the Education Technical Advisor will: support country programs to design programs and projects that are aligned to the IRC’s outcomes and evidence framework / theories of change / core indicators; lead technical design processes of proposals and write technical narrative as needed; review and ensure technical quality of proposals; input into proposal go/no go decisions and pre-positioning; analyze data to inform course correction; conduct technical trainings and ongoing technical coaching, share cross-context learning with country program staff; design, review and share program-specific tools; support senior technical country program recruitment and capacity--building.

This position involves frequent travel, reflecting the regular requests and demand for additional in-person TA support for education assessment, design, start-up, and implementation. The Education TA will support projects or country teams across IRC that require additional support in education in emergencies, including through deployments.

Requirements

Education: Master’s/post-graduate degree in education, education psychology, social work, human development or relevant field or equivalent combination of education and experience is required. Participate in ongoing training courses and share knowledge and skill sets within the unit.

Work Experience: A minimum of 6-8 years’ experience of implementing and/or managing large Education programs and teams is required, within a humanitarian or international development setting, as are at least 2-3 years acting in an advisory capacity on education programming. Education work experience in East Africa is required. Experience in technical tools and materials development, monitoring and evaluation, and research in relation to education is highly desired. Experience in strategy development and working across sectors or disciplines is highly desired.

• Demonstrated Skills and Competencies: Demonstrated expertise in education program design, monitoring and evaluation, with the ability to turn concepts and strategy into measurable action. Demonstrated expertise in youth programming, literacy, and/or numeracy preferred. Strong verbal and written communication skills. Demonstrated commitment to renewing and maintaining currency with best practices.
  

Language Skills: Fluency in English is a non-negotiable requirement; proficiency in Swahili an advantage.

Core Functions:

1. Support country program staff to design programs and projects, ensuring that they are:
   1. Aligned with the IRC’s strategy 2020 which includes contextualizing education outcomes, the theories of change and include interventions chosen based on best available evidence;
      
   2. Responsive to client needs and preferences based on sound context and gender analysis
      
2. Support selection of indicators for country programs based on available and emerging indicator testing;
   
3. Lead and facilitate as needed technical design of proposals; write technical narrative as needed; review technical quality of proposals, including providing input on budgets required for project delivery, technical activities, ensuring alignment to IRC’s education and cross-sectoral outcomes;
   
4. Input into go / no go decisions and pre-positioning on upcoming proposals;
   
5. Help analyze data to inform periodic review and course correction to ensure that IRC’s programs are based on evidence and are evidence-generating;
   
6. Conduct technical training and ongoing technical coaching for country program staff, including on outcomes, theories of change, evidence and indicators;
   
7. Provide specific guidance to IRC education programs in Latin America in efforts to integrate best practices into standard IRC Teacher Professional Development
   
8. Share cross-context learning with country program staff across the region;
   
9. Review and share program-specific tools / resources / curricula working with IRC education specialist to contextualize and adapt global and country-specific materials;
   
10. Support planning and implementation of partnership activities, including research initiatives with academic partners
    
11. Support senior technical country program recruitment;
    

Additional Functions:

1. Engage with donors and do outreach in support of country programs, especially in relation to program start up;
   
2. Help define approach to teaming / partnering with regional and national organizations, including youth led organizations;
   
3. Present IRC research findings across contexts and relevant conferences;
   
4. Support senior country program staff onboarding;
   
5. Support as requested education projects that need additional support in education in emergencies. This includes liaising with the Senior Education Technical Advisor for Emergency Response to build preparedness and response plans for the continuity of education services during new acute crisis.
   
6. Work across sectors, particularly our Economic Recovery and Development team as well as our Women’s Protection and Empowerment team to develop integrated and holistic approaches to youth development; expand our youth portfolio