Senior Education Programme Specialist

SCA has been working in Afghanistan since 1982 and is presently managing four development programmes namely Education, Health, Rural Development and Disability with a total annual budget of roughly USD 40 million operating in 14 out of 34 provinces. There are methodology units of Human Rights & Gender, Capacity Development & Civil Society and Advocacy to ensure integration and mainstreaming of the thematic areas in programme development and implementation. The total number of staff is around 5,300 of whom 15 are non-Afghans. The SCA presence in Afghanistan consists of the Kabul Management Office (KMO), five Regional Management Offices and three Liaison Offices. In Sweden SCA has 20 staff working at the Stockholm Management Office (SMO) and around 4,000 members organized in local chapters all over the country.
 SCA receives funds from various international and private donors, mainly from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

The mission of SCA is to empower individuals, communities and local organizations, primarily in rural areas and with particular focus on women, girls, boys and vulnerable groups such as people with disabilities, so that they may participate fully in society and influence their own development.

Education Programme Unit (EPU)

SCA provides access to basic education for around 84,363 children (60% girls) including more than 3,690 Kuchi children (50% girls) through supporting around 2,600 CBE classes in 13 provinces (50 districts) of central, eastern, south-eastern, northern and north-eastern zones of the country. At the same time SCA supports around 2,750 (32% women) teachers in terms of monthly payments as well as developing their teaching competencies through offering in-service teaching competency trainings in subject knowledge, methodology and inclusive education.

In addition, SCA supports 40 district and provincial level Teachers’ Elected Councils (Teachers Associations) in addition to the Kabul-based National Teachers Elected Council (NTEC) covering totally 7100 (24% female) members.

The Education Programme Unit (EPU) is based in Kabul Management Office (KMO) for Programme Development and technical support to the education teams in Regional Management Offices (RMOs) under the guidance of the Director of Programmes. EPU’s mandate includes:

• Strategic oversight of the f Education Programme components including programmatic support, process monitoring and technical backstopping; implemented through Project Management Teams (PMT) in five RMOs.
• Strategic Programme Development including evaluation, studies, assessments and reviews.
• Steering, information sharing and cross-cutting integrations through facilitation and participation in various meetings and trainings.
• Capacity and institutional development of the education staff and major stakeholders of the programme.
• Networking and coordination with Ministry of Education and other actors in education sector at national and international levels.

Scope of Work

The Senior Education Programme Specialist role mainly focuses on three areas that include a) strategic and technical input to the programme development, and b) planning and reporting and c) Assessments and Evaluations of the programme components.

Under supervision of the Education Programme Manager (EPM), to whom s/he reports, the Senior Education Programme Specialist has a central advisory role in designing, strengthening and developing of the Education Programme for ensuring long-term outcomes. S/he guides processes related to policy, strategy and methodology, provides technical support for result-based planning, monitoring and reporting and plays focal role in conducting Assessments and Evaluation Studies of the Programme components. The role encompasses strategic work on institution and system levels as well as capacity building of key Programme/Project staffs.

Responsibilities

Following are the areas of responsibilities for the position in order of priority:

1. Strategic and technical input to programme development:

With the operational management laying down under management of RMOs, KMO Programme Units are expected to be more focused on programme development and strategic guidance to the RMOs. Keeping that in mind, the Senior Education Programme Specialist’s role focuses on:

• Under the guidance of EPM, leads development processes of policies, strategies, technical guidelines and manuals by feeding in new programme development perspectives and experience from other countries with similar contexts.
• Take the lead in developing and designing of programme related concepts, studies, and evaluations, with inputs from RMOs based on pro-poor and marginalized groups perspectives reflecting the needs identified at the community level.
• Ensure that the education project units at the field level are pro-actively involved in the development of concept notes and project proposals in line with strategic objectives, mission and vision of SCA.
• To actively follow-up the progress made towards the recommendations proposed by evaluations, studies, and third-party monitoring in accordance to the management responses/action plans.
• Assist planning and reporting unit, HRGU and M&E in capacity building of KMO and RMO programme staff on Rights Based Approach (RBA), results based planning and reporting. This can include mentoring, coaching, and hands-on support.
• S/he functions as generalists in the programme, however, more specifically supports the programme in transitioning from conventional teacher training to more of in classroom mentorship support to teachers in line with students learning needs as well as ensures that the programme interventions prioritizes inclusion of the most marginalized such as girls, minorities and children with disabilities.
• The Senior Education Programme Specialist focuses on improvement in learning achievements of students through introducing new concepts and experiments based on his/her background experience in this regard.

1. Planning and Reporting:

• Leading the annual planning, reporting and proposal development processes within EPU is the primary responsibility of the EPM, the Senior Education Programme Specialist takes active part in turning the RMOs input into quality narrative drafts and submit to the EPM for final review before submission to the next level within the organization.
• The Senior Education Specialist also takes the lead in strengthening bottom up planning and reporting by building the capacity of concerned RMO staff. Support the RMO staff in strengthening participatory planning and reporting to ensure that the target groups’ women, children and people with disabilities actively take part in planning, implementation and reporting processes.

 Entry Requirements

Qualifications:                          

• University degree at master’s level, in education, holding PhD will be a preference
• At least seven years of relevant work experience in senior advisory positions in large organisations within international development including processes related to education programme and project design, policy, strategy and advocacy

Essential skills and experience:

• Analytical skills to understand the context and design intervention accordingly
• Experience in the Community Based Education, Inclusive Education and Institutional Development with strong precedence to experience in teachers training.
• Experience of mainstreaming human rights and gender equality in programmes and projects
• Experience of working with rights-based approaches and knowledge of participatory methods and tools
• Skilled in results based planning, reporting and proposals development
• Experience of Programme Assessment and Evaluation Studies.
• Experience from working abroad in developing country, country in conflict and/or post conflict
• Experience of working in a cross cultural context
• Experience in capacity building of staff  
• Skills of facilitation and presentation
• Excellent command of spoken and written English

Desired skills and experience

• Experience of working in Afghanistan (or in the region)
• Familiarity in Afghan culture and local languages (Dari or Pashto)
• Have participated in HEAT-training or other security training

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Application information

• Contract period: 2 years with an initial 6 months probationary period
• Conditions: Non- family posting. SCA offers a competitive salary, free housing, insurances and other benefits.
• Duties to begin: June 2018
• Last date for application: 27 February 2018
• Apply from sak.se (Lediga jobb) or www.swedishcommittee.org (Vacancies)
• Download a 1-page letter explaining why you are interested in and suited for this position and your CV (no more than 2 pages) in English.