Technical Director

Description

World Education, a division of JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. (JSI/WE) is dedicated to improving people’s lives around the world through greater heath, education and socioeconomic equity for individuals and communities, and to providing an environment where people of passion can pursue this cause.

JSI/WE is seeking a Technical Director for the anticipated USAID’s Targeting the Learning Crisis Activity in Uganda, which aims to create sustained, measurable improvements in development outcomes in Basic Education through Targeted Instruction for foundational skills, a learner-centric pedagogy that reorganizes math and reading instruction based on children’s actual learning levels, rather than on the prescribed grade-level syllabus. The Activity seeks to implement cost-effective, sustainable, and impactful programming, centered around Targeted Instruction pedagogy for P3-P5, Targeted Instruction and other evidence-based approaches for P1-P2, and evidence-based early childhood education for pre-primary years, in order to significantly improve math and reading learning outcomes for Ugandan primary students.

The Technical Director's primary responsibility is to provide oversight to all program interventions and collaborate with all relevant education departments and stakeholders nationally and locally. S/he will be responsible for coordinating all program interventions and providing technical oversight of the project’s technical staff. The Technical Director will assist the Chief of Party (COP) in overall project leadership and liaising with the Government of Uganda, USAID, and other key stakeholders. The Technical Director is a member of the Senior Management Team of the project and reports to the COP. Responsibilities include the overall coordination of program implementation activities in order to implement the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) and Targeted Instruction (TI) approaches to improve basic education outcomes at the pre-primary and primary level in Uganda.

Responsibilities

• Ensure quality of TaRL and TI interventions across the program, including supporting staff to understand TaRL and TI approaches and actively integrate evidence-based strategies in their technical, operational, and/or Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) work;
• Review project work plans, designing activities that target students and teachers, including age- and developmentally-appropriate activities, and activities that are responsive to and target marginalized youth;
• Coordinate effective partnerships with the Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) and other partners at the local, district, and national level;
• Strengthen the capacity of staff, partners, and stakeholders to integrate gender equity and other social inclusion considerations into intervention design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation;
• Support the MEL team in reviewing indicators, setting targets, planning for data collection, analysis, and reporting, and setting priorities around learning outcomes;
• Lead the development of quarterly and annual project reports and internal documentation as required;
• Disseminate lessons learned among program staff and stakeholders.

Qualifications

• A minimum of a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in education, gender studies, youth development, international studies, sociology, or social sciences is required. Master’s degree or equivalent preferred;
• At least 8-10 years of consecutive proven work experience in managing and providing technical leadership in large, complex projects in education, youth development, gender and social inclusion and/or integrated cross-sectoral programs: USAID experience preferred;
• Familiarity with Teaching at the Right Level and Targeted Instruction;
• Demonstrated experience and familiarity with the Ugandan pre-primary and primary education curriculum, continuous and summative assessment design, and program adaptation to achieve results;
• Solid contextual knowledge of barriers to pre-primary and primary education in Uganda;
• Demonstrated experience conducting gender and/or youth analysis, including qualitative data collection;
• Proven interpersonal skills with the ability to build personal relationships with staff, donor partners, and government stakeholders at all levels in a culturally sensitive manner;
• Program/project management experience working with rural, underserved populations;
• Demonstrated experience developing community engagement strategies and approaches, and building the capacity of staff and partners to operationalize these;
• Effective oral and written communication skills to make formal and informal presentations and compose professional and analytical reports and program documents in English.
• Ugandan nationals strongly encouraged to apply.