Senior Education Specialist

SCA has been working in Afghanistan since 1982 and is presently managing development programmes within Health, Education, Rural Development and Disability. SCA’s programming is built on the three strategic means of service delivery, capacity development and advocacy. SCA has around 8,000 staff and manages its activities in Afghanistan through the Kabul Management Office (KMO), five Regional Management Offices (RMOs) and two Liaison Offices (LOs) across 19 provinces. In Sweden SCA has 24 staff working at the Stockholm Management Office (SMO) and around 5,000 members organized in local chapters. SCA is funded by various institutional and private donors, including Sida, UNICEF, WHO, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, EU, NDC, FCDO and fund raising. 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.

SCA provides access to basic education for more than 120,000 children (65% girls) including more than 3,500 Nomad and about 3,000 children with disability through supporting around 3,500 CBE classes in 13 provinces of central, eastern, south-eastern, northern, and north-eastern regions of the country. SCA also supports around 4,000 (35% 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 around 8,000 (30% 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 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, Ministry of Economy and other actors in education sector at national and international levels.
• Developing of concept notes, project proposals and designing of projects.

Scope of Work

The Senior Education 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 Head of Education Programme, to whom s/he reports, the Senior Education 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.

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 positions in large organisations within international development including processes related to programme and project design, policy, strategy, and advocacy.

Essential skills and experience:

• Experience in the Community Based Education, Inclusive Education, and Institutional Development with strong preference in teacher education.
• 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 in programme monitoring, evaluation, accountability, learning and research.
• International experience related to education, working in conflict and/or post conflict country.
• Experience in team building and being a good team player in a cross-cultural context.
• Experience in capacity building of staff
• Analytical, facilitation and presentation skills
• Excellent command of spoken and written English

Desired skills and experience

• Experience of working in Afghanistan
• Familiarity in Afghan culture and local languages (Dari or Pashto)

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 Specialist’s role focuses on:

• Under the guidance of the Head of the Education Programme, 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 teams 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 with the management responses/action plans.
• Coordinate with Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Unit (PMERU), Human Rights and Gender Unit (HRGU) on related assignments and capacity building of KMO and RMO level Education programme staff on Rights Based Approach (RBA), results-based planning and reporting. This can include mentoring, coaching, and hands-on support.
• The Senior Education Specialist 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.
• The Senior Education Specialist focuses on improvement in learning achievements of students through introduction of new concepts and ideas.

2. Planning and Reporting:

• Leading the annual planning, reporting and proposal development processes within Education Programme Unit is the main responsibility of the Head of Education Programme while the Senior Education Specialist takes lead on turning the input from Programme and RMOs teams into quality narrative drafts and submit to the Head of Education Programme 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.

Application information

• Contract period: 2 years with an initial 6-month probationary period
• Conditions: Non- family posting. SCA offers a competitive salary, free housing, insurance, and other benefits.
• Duties to begin: December 2023
• Last date for application: 18 July 2023