The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is looking for Senior education officer – Mogadishu

Background

The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) funded Education Sector Program Implementation Grant (ESPIG) is aligned with the priorities of the Federal Government of Somalia’s new ESSP and with GPE strategic objectives. The project focuses on the primary education subsector and seek to expand equitable access to quality primary education opportunities, improving learning outcomes, ensuring the acquisition of foundational skills at the expected level for each grade, and enhance system capacity at the central MOECHE and Member State Ministries. The ESPIG grant aim to address the needs of large numbers of out‐of‐school children in South Central Somalia, with a focus on children from marginalized groups such as IDPs, pastoralists/nomads, urban poor, minority clans, and children with disabilities, and with a particular emphasis on girls. The grant will be implemented by the Federal Government of Somalia ministry of education, culture and Higher Education (MoECHE) in collaboration with the federal member states ministries of education in Jubaland, South west, Galmudug, Hirshabelle states and Banaadir Regional administration with CARE as grant agent and Concern Worldwide as sub‐contractor.

Job summary

The senior Education Officer –GPE will be based in Mogadishu and support day to day implementation of the GPE project covering five regional states – Jubaland, Banaadir Regional Administration, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West states. Reporting to the Educationa Technical Advisor –GPE, she/he is expected to work with regional state Ministries of Education, schools, Regional Education Officers, Quality Assurance staff, and other staff of the various Directorates of the Federal Ministry of Education, Culture and Higher Education and state MOEs, local communities and other education stakeholders to ensure the delivery of a high quality project. Their primary responsibilities will include project planning and implementation, project monitoring and reporting.

Responsibilities

1. 3.1 Project Planning and implementation (50%)

a) School improvement Grants

• Working with the Education Technical Advisor support the delivery of school inclusion grants to all beneficiary community –owned or public schools.
• Together with the team, MOECHE and state MoEs undertake the mapping of the schools in each regional state.
• Support the development of national school inclusion grant guidelines. Ensure the guidelines include agreed targeting formulae for the selection of schools, criteria for selection, enrolment and retention of out-of-school children, the role of the CECs and clear instructions on eligible expenditures and record keeping.
• Lead the consultation and coordination with stakeholders (states, development partners, private school networks and NGOs) and engage with 800 schools and their CECs.
• Work with REOs and QAS in each state to ensure that the SIG are used for activities based on the needs and priorities of a school

b) Community Education Committee

• Work the Program Management Unit (PMU) to facilitate a CEC policy guidelines workshop with Member States and implementers of CEC training.
• Support training package development workshops, guided by a national technical adviser and ensure consultations are held with private school representatives, Islamic school operators and Member States.
• Together with the Education Technical Advisor, conduct a training of trainers on the new CEC training package for DEOs, NGOs and private school trainers.
• Support the training of CECs in 300 schools where trainings have not happened so far.
• Support the REOs to conduct two-day training workshops to CECs, in advance of the disbursement of school inclusion grants.

c) School safety

• Working with REOs and state MOEs support district-level school safety dialogues in 60 districts, bringing together regional and district authorities, security forces, clan elders, religious leaders and CEC representatives.
• Work with CECs and school administrations on school-level safety dialogues in 800 schools, facilitated by DEOs. Ensure this activity is coordinated with other partners to leverage existing activities in schools.

d) Primary school text books

• Oversee the distribution of text books to all the 800 schools across the five regional state ensuring that the books have reach individual learners in each school.
• Ensure that the desired pupil –text book ratio of 2: 1 is achieved in each school.
• Ensure all the textbooks and teacher guides are appropriately branded in order to avoid selling in the market.
• Make supervisory monitoring visits to schools and sensitize the CECs and school administration on the use of curriculum materials provided to the schools

e) Early grade assessment (EGRA)

• Support the piloting and scale up of EGRA to nationally representative assessments to provide system-level diagnostic data.
• Support the national scale assessment of EGRA across the beneficiary schools in the five regional states.

3.2 Project Monitoring (20%)

• Support MoECHE and external consultants during planning, development of data collection tools and implementation of the project baseline survey, mid-term review and end term evaluation.
• Support MoECHE officials to review critical findings of the evaluations, interpret the results and reflect on the validity of the program’s original assumptions, the factors affecting the uptake of activities and the actual influence of the ESSP interventions vis-à-vis their expected results.
• Support joint quarterly monitoring visits to project sites together with the MOECHE and relevant consortium members at all levels to monitor progress.
• Coordinate with the federal state, federal member states other stakeholders on information dissemination and cross learning for greater impact.

3.3 Reporting (20%)

• Provide regular monthly technical progress reports to the Education Technical Advisor
• Support the consolidation of reports (quarterly, annual and final) as per donor requirements including consolidation of evidence of impact.
• Support in documenting project stories, case studies, best practices and lesson learnt

3.4 General Responsibilities (10%)

Any other duties as assigned by the supervisor.

 

Required qualifications / person specifications

1. 4.1 Education and Training

Bachelors degree in Education

4.2 Relevant Experience

Minimum 5 years field experience in development projects. Experiece of working with IDPs and other marginalized groups on education in the region desirable

4.3 Knowledge and Skills

•  Computer skills
•  Good knowledge of contemporary development issues
•  Ability to transfer skills to other staff
•  Outstanding communications skills, and excellent ability to motivate community group to solve problems
•  Excellent analytical skills.

Decision Making Authority

5.1. Financial

N/A

6. Key Relationships

6.1 External Contacts

•  MOECHE staff
•  State MOEs staff
•  Concern Worldwide
•  Peer Agencies

6.2. Internal Contacts

•  Finance and support units staff
•  Security Advisor
•  PMU team

6.3. Direct Reports

•  None

7 Working Conditions

•  The position is based in Mogadishu, but a significant amount of time (50%) travel to other regional states in south central Somalia

8 Core Values and Critical Competencies

•  Experience or working knowledge of vocational training
•  Willingness to undertake extensive field work in remote communities
•  Computer skills including literacy in MicroSoft Word and Excel
•  Ability to create and maintain a working environment that will promote value and respect diversity in the implementation process.
•  Excellent interpersonal, planning, organizing, communication skills
•  Good understanding of gender issues and rights based approaches
•  Clearly conveying information and ideas through a variety of media to individuals or groups in a manner that engages the audience and helps them understand and retain their message.
•  Excellent communication, planning, supervisory and interpersonal skills that will enable the identification of opportunities to establish effective strategic relationships between one’s area and others to achieve CARE’s objectives.
•  Willingness to work and live under difficult physical and security conditions and the necessary restrictions that this entails
•  Ability to work independently and meet deadlines yet effectively coordinate program activities with other CARE projects being implemented