Senior Technical Advisor, Education

Job Description:

Job Summary:
You will provide technical leadership and advice in line with CRS program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to Technical Advisors and Regional and Country Program (CP) teams to advance the delivery of high-quality education programming to the most disadvantaged children and youth. Your expertise, leadership, and influence will be key in determining how effective, adaptive and innovative CRS’ education programming is across the globe. More specifically, you will lead CRS’ efforts to design and implement a global learning agenda, carry out operations research, and ensure that its education programming is evidence-based and positively affects children’s learning and developmental outcomes. In addition to serving as the lead team member with respect to research and learning, you will also provide leadership for a thematic area recently identified under the education strategy and conceptual framework: inclusion; school health and nutrition; family/community engagement; child literacy development; or responsive pedagogy and teacher professional development.
Job Responsibilities:

• Lead design and implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in thematic area. Lead and/or collaborate with others on research, evaluation and learning in education that effectively engage partners, donors, and governments. Ensure a cross-sectoral approach that integrates gender, disability, protection mainstreaming, and disaster risk reduction.
• Contribute to HQ, regional, and country program staff efforts to pre-position CRS for strategic growth opportunities in education. Provide technical guidance in proposal development and project design with a focus on thematic area and research, evaluation and learning within complex projects to ensure innovative programming solutions and technical excellence. Support CPs to appropriately staff project teams.
• Lead capacity strengthening initiatives in thematic area and in operations research, evaluation, and learning within education programming for staff and partners through ensuring the development of a learning agenda, organizing and/or facilitating trainings, workshops and conferences, and mentoring and coaching staff in innovative CRS approaches and tools. Provide mentoring and coaching to TAs, as well as CP and regional staff.
• Lead the agency knowledge management and learning agenda in education through setting conditions for collective learning that ensure the capturing, documenting, and sharing of key successes, promising practices, lessons learned, and evidence-based implementation research, internally and externally, including publications in peer reviewed journals.
• Lead efforts to support uptake, analysis, and reporting on education sector global metrics.
• Represent CRS at global forums, UN, Congress, and major donor forums to present CRS’ work and research in education to influence technical partner approaches, future funding opportunities, and policies. Network with relevant organizations to increase CRS’ profile in education, influence in the global education community, and donor diversification.

Typical Background, Experience & Requirements:

• Master's Degree in education, early childhood development, special education, psychology, or related field. PhD a plus.
• Minimum of ten years of work experience in education with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, with five years overseas in multiple regions as a technical advisor and/or program manager of an education and/or multi-sectoral project with a strong education component.
• Deep understanding and application of technical principles and concepts in education. Strong research methods background desired, including research design (both qualitative and quantitative), sampling procedures, data analysis, and reporting.
• Track record of contributing significantly to successful business development activities capturing public and/or private donor funding in education.
• Expertise in the development and production of tools and other products to support education interventions and programming, in one of the thematic areas outlined above as well as in the area of research, evaluation, and learning. Demonstrated experience to transfer knowledge to diverse audiences through training, mentoring, and other formal and informal methods.
• Experience in designing and/or adapting learning assessments to different contexts and for different learners.
• Demonstrated experience in the use of data for decision-making, to inform communication, planning, resource allocation, and other strategic initiatives.
• Experience with program monitoring and evaluation including development of indicators, data collection tools and methodologies, data analysis, and data presentation.
• Familiarity with donor expectations and guidelines for key education donors such as USAID, USDA, FCDO, UNICEF, etc.
• Demonstrated experience and skills to represent the organization at the highest levels at meetings with donors, government, international NGOs, local partners – faith-based and civil society. Understanding of partnership principles.
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications and strong understanding of information and budget management systems and knowledge-sharing networks.
• Technical and/or academic publications highly desirable.

Required/Desired Foreign Language
English, required; French, Spanish, Arabic, and/or Portuguese, desired
Travel Required (include percentage of required travel, if applicable): Up to 25%, as needed (and as conditions allow)

What we offer
CRS offers a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, life insurance, vision, generous retirement savings plan and the opportunity to work in a collaborative, mission-driven culture that is committed to improving the lives of the poor throughout the world.
NOTE: All interested applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. at the time of application.
Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.
CRS' talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.
EOE/M/F/D/V - CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. We welcome as a part of our staff and as partners people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.

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