Summary
Date Posted: Wednesday, April 05, 2023 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
Are you passionate about being an advocate for children? Do you want to use your expertise to bring about lasting change for children and be a part of an inspiring, dynamic global movement?
The Head of Education supports the quality design, delivery, and representation of Save the Children’s Education programming in Uganda (which includes: Early Childhood Education, Primary Education and Transition to Secondary school as well as non-formal Education in both development and emergency settings), and to uphold and contribute to Save the Children’s mission to create a positive and lasting impact in the lives of hard to reach children in Uganda.

S/he will provide strategic and operational leadership and assume the overall responsibility for the growth, development and implementation of the education portfolio in Uganda. S/He must bring a Senior Leadership profile with a proven track record in education and a sound technical background in programme design and delivery. S/He should also have experience managing complex programming delivery in fragile contexts.

Sounds interesting? Read more below.

THE ROLE
Key areas of accountability include:
• Lead the operationalization of the new Save the Children in Uganda’s Education Strategy, in line with organizational goals, the Country Strategic Plan (2022-2024) and resource availability. Ensure that programme remains relevant to the external environment and changing needs of most marginalized children in hard-to-reach areas.
• Based on the revised Education strategy, lead and design Country Annual Planning for the Education sector
• Ensure quality programme implementation across education programming areas – both humanitarian and development, by harmonising approaches across different locations and programmes.
• Serve as the point of contact for all matters related to Education, particularly the scaling up or down of the Save the Children education programmes, including the Emergency Response capacity, Education Sector Working Group representation, policy development and capacity building.
• Work at the policy level with high-level decision makers from the host government, participating in strategy development, policy making, and technical discussions, as well as negotiating to determine priorities for Education in Uganda.
• Keeps up breast of new national policies, strategies and any other initiatives and developments by the Government of Uganda and other stakeholders relating to the Education, including Education in Emergencies (EiE). Regularly assesses and communicates the implications for Save the Children’s programme and priorities of any changes in the operating environment, in close collaboration with the relevant Technical Specialists.
• Ensure that the core principles and policies of Save the Children International regarding child rights, child protection, and children’s participation are applied across the education work in Uganda.
• Fulfil the SCI and Education Global Initiative mandate including SCI requirements in reporting.
• Share technical expertise and support capacity building with the education team in the field.

Resource Mobilization
• Analyse and inform donor priorities and positions on issues related to education and influence senior management decisions on strategic priorities for the Education thematic area; contribute to the development and regular updating of SCI Uganda fundraising plan.
• Along with Director of PDQ and Programme Development and Resourcing Manager, maintain constant professional contacts with strategic and potential donors and key technical agencies to continuously leverage support and resources for children in Uganda programme.
• Help to identify high value and high potential fundraising and mobilization opportunities for education programs working in close collaboration with relevant staff to ensure that new funding proposals are in accordance with country and global strategies and policies.

Monitoring and Evaluation
• Ensure adequate ongoing monitoring and evaluation of all education programs.
• Sign off on relevant monitoring reports prior to submission to donors, thus ensuring that technical aspects are well articulated, and reports are of acceptable quality. Provide support where necessary to improve report writing skills of education teams.
• Ensure that the Global Impact Monitoring system is applied to and integrated within the education sector.
• Ensure all SC members’ M&E requirements are monitored and reported on as well as SCI global education indicators.
• Where external consultants are required to technically support or monitor and evaluate projects, lead the recruitment and support subsequent management of contracted consultants as per the recruitment guidelines of Uganda CO.
• Ensure the development of an M&E framework that helps each project improve quality of reporting, clearly articulate progress and impact of projects, identify quality issues to be addressed by project implementation teams to enhance quality. This will include IPTT, Quality Benchmarks, Data Quality Assessment and any other M&E tools developed and rolled out in the CO.
• Regularly review and monitor programmes related to child safeguarding issues. Pro-actively support the implementation teams to take corrective actions in modifying programme activities and/or report incidents.

Accountability and Learning
• Ensure to provide an avenue for children’s voice through Accountability mechanisms across all Education programmes being implemented either directly or through partners.
• Serve as a technical knowledge, skills and experience hub for the thematic area in Uganda and in doing so play a leading role in introducing innovations in education programmes (gained from existing and emerging Save the Children’s global knowledge and practices) and in turn documenting and dissemination of best practices and innovations for replication and advocacy purpose.
• Lead on generating, documenting and disseminating evidence and learning on what works for children to inform our program design, implementation, and advocacy on wider policy and practice to have impact at scale.
• Facilitate appropriate dissemination of evidence and good practices documentations in the programme internally and externally to donors, governments, consortium partners and other key actors strategic for immediate and sustainable development of children in Uganda
• Lead and work closely with the Head of MEAL to identify and lead strategic ground-breaking research in education for development of innovative programmes and issue-based advocacy.

Human Resources
• Work with human resources unit and managers in drafting job descriptions, targeting adverts, developing an organogram, and interviewing candidates for the education sector. Undertake technical performance appraisal of Education Project Managers, with their line managers.
• Work with regional and members’ education advisers for technical support.

Coordination and Representation
• Represent Save the Children at national level Education Cluster meetings, Technical Working Group meetings, Ministry of Education meetings, and other relevant forums. To meet regularly and liaise closely with relevant authorities (i.e. Ministry of Education / UN / other NGOs / Education (Cluster) Working Group
• Work in close partnership with other Thematic Specialists such as Child Protection, Health and Nutrition, and Child Poverty regarding integrated programming and Cross-Thematic quality team.
• In consultation with children, communities, local government authorities, non-state actors, and relevant national technical departments, supervise the design of new Education (or proposals with educational components) proposals. This responsibility also includes ensuring links across the whole programme
• Keep abreast of international developments and debates regarding education, in order to advise and assist Save the Children to effectively respond to developments and participate in debates.
• Any other tasks as requested.

Emergency Response
• Act as Education Technical Lead for any education in emergency response in Uganda. Support any EiE assessments as necessary, education preparedness and response plans with Transition/Exit strategies.

To be a strong supporter and advocate for children in this role you will need to have:
• An education professional with a master’s degree in education or equivalent
• Significant (at least 5 years) professional experience of working at a senior advisory level in education for international NGOs in complex settings. Specific experience in education in emergencies (EiE) is highly valued.
• Strong commitment to capacity building of national staff and partners with willingness to adopt participatory and consultative approaches.
• Substantial progressive, professional-level experience at the management level with background in early childhood education and primary education
• Ability to make links between education, livelihoods, child protection and health interventions within the context of an integrated program approach
• An ability to effectively negotiate with prospective donors and a demonstrated ability to develop and write detailed technical project proposals meeting donor requirements, including budgets for the same. Strong report writing skills,
• Ability to perform at a senior policy level must be demonstrable, and good communication, advocacy and leadership skills are critical.
• The ability to liaise and effectively coordinate with government, local NGOs and community initiatives. Good interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate and negotiate clearly and effectively at all levels, considering cultural and language difficulties.
• A desire to learn the Ugandan political, social and cultural characteristics is expected. Have a broad appreciation for the issues and process of participatory development.
• Proven experience of living and working in insecure environments, able to follow security guidelines
• The ability to research and utilise existing local government and other technical expertise where applicable.
• High level of computer literacy
• Fluency in English
• Ability and willingness to travel regularly into the field.
• Knowledge of donor financial policies and guidelines.
• Experience in promoting and mainstreaming Child Rights Based programming in education programme design, implementation and evaluation.


Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: 60

Level of Education: Postgraduate Degree

Job application procedure

Please apply using a cover letter and up-to-date CV as a single document. Please also include details of your current remuneration and salary expectations. Click here to apply  
We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

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