Senior Educations Officer at Street Child

Reporting to: Education Programmes Manager

Hours: 37 hours full time. 8:30 AM – 5:15 PM with forty-five minutes lunch break from Monday to Thursday. 8:30 AM – 1:30 PM on Friday

Principal Location: Maiduguri, Borno with frequent travel to Yobe

Background:

Street Child believes that every child deserves the chance to go to school and learn. Our projects focus on a combination of education, child protection and livelihood support to address the social, economic and structural issues that underpin today’s education crisis. We partner with local organisations and communities to deliver our locally rooted programmes, using evidence to drive learning and the refinement and scale-up of programmes to create maximum impact for most children at the lowest cost. We pride ourselves on being willing to go to the world’s toughest places where others won’t, including remote, hard-to-reach areas and fragile, disaster-affected states across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Since 2008 we have helped over 338,000 children to go to school and learn and supported over 29,000 families to set up businesses so they can afford the cost of educating their children.

Part 1: Role Purpose:

Street Child is looking for a dedicated Senior Education Officer for a 3 year ECW Multi-Year Resilience Programme delivered in a consortium partnership. The project seeks to provide quality inclusive education for conflict-affected children across the Bay states, providing access to education, building the capacity of teachers, and strengthening protection mechanisms. Street Child’s primary areas of operation will be in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.
Street Child also integrates Child Protection to ensure children learn in a safe and protective environment in school and at home and aligned with the commitment to the localisation agenda, Street Child will implement together with three local organisations we have been working together in the last two years.
The main responsibility of the Senior Education officer will be to oversee implementation of the project in Yobe state, monitoring and supporting two national implementing partners as well as supporting the Project Manager to oversee implementation in Borno state. The Senior Education Officer will coach implementing partners to deliver high-quality programming and progress the project implementation against the work plan and the objectives, achieving timely project outputs and outcomes. The Senior Education Officer will work under the supervision of the Education Programmes Manager with direct task management from the Project Manager.
The position requires a proven capacity of project delivery, effective partner management at a senior level and coordination with colleagues and external stakeholders. The ideal candidate would have a strong background in Education, good communication skills, and excellent leadership abilities. Analytical thinking and the capacity to research innovative intervention methods, as well as creativity and flexibility are also expected.
Part 2: Key Responsibilities:

1) Project Implementation (60%)

• In coordination with the Project Manager responsible for the implementation of activities for ECW MYRP in Yobe and providing support for Borno state.
• Monitoring of all activities implemented by partner staff, ensuring they are contributing to the targets and indicators outlined in the programme documents and results framework.
• Support Project Manager to develop quarterly work plans and budget forecasts
• Support national implementing partners to reflect quarterly activity planning and budget forecasting in line with the timeline of the project.
• Ensure that all activities implemented are in line with budget expenditure and forecasting.
• Report any issues with project implementation to the Project Manager with suggestions for innovative solutions to challenges as they arise.
• Identify gaps in implementing partner capacity and support project manager and Partnership Coordinator.

2) Reporting (30%)

• Preparation of internal narrative progress reports on a monthly and quarterly basis, including submission of project case studies.
• Support project manager in preparation of donor narrative progress reports on a quarterly, midterm and annual basis, or additionally as requested.
• Ensure that implementing partners are submitting monthly narrative progress reports to Street Child in a timely manner, with support and guidance to improve reporting capacity.
• Support project manager with a review of monthly BVA’s and forecasting to ensure spending is in line with project timeline and activities implemented are in line with the work plan.
• Conduct monthly VBA's with the implementing partner to ensure accuracy of spending and identify any clear areas of over or underspend that may affect the project delivery timeline.
• Provide support to project manager and MEAL team to prepare for required baseline, midline and end-line assessments.
• Ensure there is a functioning information pathway with submission of project data, MOV's and activity reports to the MEAL team in order for verification checks to be carried out.

3) Leadership (10%)

• Display excellent interpersonal, listening and communication skills among colleagues, partners and external stakeholders.
• Demonstrate ability to work and deliver under pressure and tight deadlines.
• Demonstrate ability to work in a flexible, sub-optimal, stressful and unstable environment.
• Ensure safeguarding practices are adhered to by Street Child and implementing partner teams, and immediately report any concerns.

Part 3: Person Specification
Attributes Essential Desirable

Education /

Qualifications Master’s degree in social science, Education or equivalent

Experience

Knowledge Experience (at least 4 years) working in international development in programme management roles. Experience (at least 2 years) of working in North-East Nigeria on the emergency response in education or other relevant sectors. Experience in managing sizable teams. Proven evidence of having led the delivery of successful programmes, ideally with a budget of $1m or above Previous experience of working in Yobe, and good knowledge of key stakeholders.

Skills

Abilities Strong analytical, reporting, strategic thinking, and planning skills. Strong monitoring and evaluation skills/experience Demonstrable knowledge of project cycle management and results in the framework. Knowledge and ability to apply INEE standards an advantage

Others

Fluency in English (written and spoken) and excellent writing skills. Hausa and additional local language skills are highly desirable