Team Lead - FCDO

ADVERTISEMENT: PROJECT TEAM LEAD - FCDO

ROLE PURPOSE

Save the Children is seeking a Project Team Lead for the anticipated 3 year £ 4.4 million FCDO funded Institutional Strengthening of Policy Implementation to Reduce Educational Disparities in the early years’ education (INSPIRED) Programme. The programme will focus on increased access to quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) services in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands, with a reduction in gender disparities, and stronger ECE and foundational learning policy environment established at the national level; and strengthening evidence generation to inform decision-making at county and national levels.

The Project Team Lead will take overall responsibility of the consortium’s deliverables in the project. S/he or will provide overall leadership direction for the project, ensuring smooth coordination and technical coherence across the programme. 

This position is contingent upon donor approval and funding.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY

Technical assistance and capacity building

• Provide programmatic and strategic leadership, setting priorities in designing and managing the implementation of the project’s activities in collaboration with the technical and operational staff
• Provide overall operational and technical guidance and leadership for implementation of activities 
• Working with the operational and technical staff across the partners, ensuring shared, harmonised, and integrated technical learning approaches across the partners 
• Provide leadership for Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement measures in education work 
• Review and analyze data for performance monitoring and utilize the data to take corrective actions.
• Provide leadership in ensuring the project is implemented on budget, on time and with quality
• Ensure that adaptive learning is embedded in all technical aspects of the programme, and that programmes are able to adapt quickly to changes in context and build on continuous lessons learned. 

Oversight and Management Project Operations

• Responsible for overall coordination, line management and support of the Project, and ensure that:
• Project teams receive appropriate and timely support from technical advisers and programme quality teams for program technical design and strategy, MEAL, and advocacy. 
• Principles of child safeguarding and ‘do no harm’ are embedded in all project planning, implementation and reporting and that staff receive regular, up to date training on it.
• Advocacy, gender and social inclusion are adequately mainstreamed within the programme and staff receive regular training. 
• Ensure transparency in targeting beneficiaries, delivery of services and participation of beneficiaries and partners in planning and monitoring of process is reflected in programme delivery
• Ensure technical and administrative compliance with donor requirements
• Act as the consortium focal person 

Oversight of Grants and Finance Management:

• In close coordination with Award and Finance team, ensure that all project programmatic reporting requirements including donor reports have strong technical coherence and are completed within time, budget, and quality.

Partnerships, Representation and Advocacy

• Represent the project in relevant internal and external fora including donor meetings (as appropriate) 
• In consultation with the Director Operations and Programme Managers, support stakeholder engagement with communities, local partners, national and county Governments and foster strong relationships and collaboration of other key stakeholder groups 
• Work with relevant consortium members and relevant stakeholders to further the project’s vision.
• Strong relationships with government, both national government and the county governments. This should include credibility and strong reputation with Kenya’s Ministry of Education (MoE), and credibility and strong reputation with Wajir and Mandera county governments
• Build partnerships with key stakeholders’, enhance government, community participation, ownership and sustainability of programmes. 
• Represent Save the Children and the in relevant working groups and coordination meetings

People management, mentoring and development

• Ensure effective  management and  appropriate staffing within the project
• Manage the team; define expectations, provide leadership and technical support, and evaluate direct reports regularly
• Incorporate staff development strategies and Performance Management Systems into team building process.  Establish result based system and follow up
• Manage the performance of  his direct line reports through: 
  • Effective use of the Performance Management System including the establishment of clear, measurable objectives, ongoing feedback, periodic reviews and fair and unbiased evaluations;
  • Coaching, mentoring and other developmental opportunities;
  • Recognition and rewards for outstanding performance;
  • Effective and timely management of poor performance
• Ensure appropriate gender and ethnic diversity within the Project programme teams

 Program Quality, Reporting and Knowledge management

• Strengthen the project’s evidence generation to inform decision-making and drive more robust performance management, continuous learning, adaptive programming, and strengthen the uptake of evidence on what works.
• Work with the monitoring, evaluation and research, and wider programme team to analyse programme data and identify and implement real-time iterations to programme design, including support to teachers and key stakeholders
• Work with T4D technical team and relevant MoE directorates at national and county levels to digitize relevant project tools on school attendance, teacher development and instructional support to generate real time data for adaptive management  
• Oversee technical narrative and financial reports for donor(s), ensuring these are of a high quality and submitted for review in a timely manner. 
• Monitor technical results and work closely with the Monitoring, Evaluation and Research team to ensure that results are documented and reported accurately and in a timely manner
• Facilitate appropriate documentation and dissemination of learnings, analyses, and good practices documentations in the project internally and externally to donors, governments, consortium partners and other key actors

Contract Duration: 2 years

Number of Vacancies: 1

Work Location: Nairobi

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s / post graduate degree or Ph.D in education (preferably Early Childhood Development and Education)
• Strong understanding of Kenya’s National Education Reforms, Competency Based Curriculm, gender and social inclusion, play based learning, and teacher and learner wellbeing including MHPSS/SEL. 
•  Demonstrable experience working with government, both national government and the county governments, including the Ministry of Education, Teachers Service Commission
• Experience on policy influencing and systems strengthening in the education sector
• Experience and a strong understanding of Kenya’s early childhood education (ECE) policy landscape, particularly in the ASALs context.
• Expertise and experience in capacity building government agencies, and government personnel, to strengthen the uptake of education evidence, and strengthen the foundational learning policy environment. 
• Extensive experience in the delivery of equity and inclusion interventions in education at policy level, but more specifically in the ASAL counties
•  A minimum of 10 years of relevant technical experience in early childhood education, teacher professional development; and managing multiple partners, consortia and large/complex education grants. 
• Excellent experience in external representation with donors, local/national governments, communities, and partners 
• Experience solving complex issues through analysis, adapting and innovating where necessary, and defining a clear way forward and ensuring buy in, as well as working on agile programme management 

Competencies:

• Strong commitment to Save the Children’s values 
• Ability to extensively travel for on-site technical support to field teams in Mandera and Wajir.
• Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills including representation, influencing, negotiation and coaching
• Highly developed cultural and political awareness and ability to work well in an international and matrix management environment with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures
• Strong results orientation, with the ability to challenge existing mindsets
• Ability to present complex information in a succinct and compelling manner

Fluency in English and Kiswahili, both verbal and written

THE ORGANIZATION

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

HOW TO APPLY

Please apply in English saving your CV and covering letter as a single document, including your salary expectations for this role. To see a full a job description, please visit our website at www.savethechildren.net/jobs

We need to keep children safe so our selection process reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse. Employment is subject to our Child protection standards including background checks and adherence to our Child Safeguarding Policy.

Save the Children is an equal opportunity employer and seeks to employ and assign the best-qualified talent.

Female Candidates are encouraged to apply.

Disclaimer: 

Save the Children International does not charge any kind of fee at whichever stage of the recruitment process, nor request for medical examination or records and does not act through recruitment agents whatsoever.