System Strengthening/EMIS Officer at Education Development Center (EDC)

Position Requirements

The USAID/Nigeria's Northern Education Initiative Plus project, being implemented by Creative Associates and EDC, works to improve the quality of and access to education in Nigeria's Northern states. The System Strengthening/EMIS Officer will provide technical assistance on education information management systems project-wide and will be responsible for overseeing policy-related activities.

This position is based in Sokoto, Nigeria, and will report to the Sokoto State Team Leader.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Support the development of a common web-based EMIS using existing open source software that can be customized by state and LGEAs to meet unique information needs;
• Provide ongoing technical support to ministries, departments, and agencies staff to review progress, “trouble shoot” problems, and support use of EMIS data;
• Provide support for  inter-state training for SMOE, SUBEB, and planners, analysts, and policy makers focused on gathering, analyzing and using data from the EMIS, reading assessments, evaluations, and research to make decisions and plan education improvement initiatives;
• Support planners and policy makers to use data for quality decision-making;
• Provide assistance in setting up systems to gather data for access to quality education at the state level.
• Facilitate a process with state governments and other stakeholders to map and review existing education policy frameworks, especially around systems, access, reading instruction, and assessment.
• Work with FMOE, SMOEs, UBEC, NMEC, SUBEB, SAME, MORA to provide support to sustain existing policy initiatives and facilitate development and implementation of new policies, particularly in the areas of systems, access, reading instruction, assessment, and accountability;
• Facilitate policy review meetings with regard to reading and access to track progress in implementing new policies, identify corrective actions to speed implementation, and develop tools to assess impact;
• Improve the capacity of government education officials to develop leadership, managerial, and supervisory skills to effectively implement policies and regulations with regard to access and reading;
• Provide coaching on various issues including data analysis and evidence-based decision making, monitoring, and staff mentoring;
• Support dissemination of new policies and opportunities for bottom-up feedback at all levels through state-level workshops involving government education officials; community meetings; IT; paper publications; and ongoing media campaigns.

Skills and Experience

Candidates must demonstrate at least 8 years of expertise with EMIS with international development organizations or in an international development context. He/She must demonstrate 5 years of experience in a leadership position responsible for developing policy frameworks for education, including expertise in policy mapping and able to work with government representatives and stakeholders on national and state levels. He/She must have a Master’s Degree in Public Policy or related field.The candidate must be professionally proficient and fluent in written and spoken English.