Operations Program Officer (Instructional Oversight) at Bridge International Academies

The Bridge Approach

Education is in crisis in many countries around the world. It is estimated that 264 million children and young people are out of school, and 330 million children are in school but  not learning. In addition, an extra 69 million teachers are needed to achieve the 2030 UN education goals.

Many education systems are plagued with inadequate materials and poor management systems, all leading to chronic teacher absenteeism and a lack of learning. Education reform  is challenging but it is urgently required if we are to prevent another generation of children missing out. So, we work in partnership with governments, NGOs and non-state actors to address the huge education imbalance between what is available and what is needed right now — we work to bridge the gap.

We believe parents have the right to choose a school for their children and we enable families to enjoy seeing their children learn, improve and flourish at Bridge schools. We locate our schools in some of the most disadvantaged communities in the world. Families in our communities can be earning just $1.90 per person a day; a level the World Bank notes is at extreme poverty. By putting learning at the centre of all we do, Bridge has become an extremely popular choice for underserved families and low-income communities.

With plans to enrol ten million students ten years from now, Bridge offers a tremendous opportunity to grow with one of the world’s most exciting and ambitious social enterprises, with leadership roles available across a number of competencies and geographies.

Operations at Bridge

The operations department is responsible for the critical performance of our entire network of academies in East Africa, including operations, marketing, personnel management, instructional delivery, expenses & payroll, parent and community relations, facilities, and more.

About the role

The Programme Officer is responsible for supporting the Programme Manager in ensuring each academy has the proper number of teachers to teach all classes, creating and operationalizing academy personnel disciplinary policy, and coordinating teacher and Academy Manager (AM) recruiting at existing academies.

What You Will Do

• Ensure all teachers and Academy Managers have downloaded scripts for each day
• Ensure the Script Availability report is working (including conducting field tests)
• Ensure the stored procedure for mapping lessons to teachers has been programmed by the scheduler team and that schedules received are in-line with this
• Synching daily to check for availability and correctness of schedules on Smartphone and Teacher Computers
• Communicate with the scheduling team cases of missing or incorrect scripts noted or reported by academies via CRM tickets and communicate this information back to academies
• Ensure the Lesson Schedules v2 report is working (including conducting field tests)
• Ensure each teacher is fulfilling their mandate in delivering lessons every day of class
• Overseeing early KCPE preparation and collection of documents from parents
• Take disorganized data coming from multiple sources eg. phone call results, emails, surveys and organize that data into specific data repositories (Microsoft Excel; software systems) according to the appropriate format
• Create simple data tables in Microsoft Excel for further analysis
• Screen CRM for issues related to the above programmes and respond to those issues accordingly
• Create surveys to collect specific data

What You Should Have

• Bachelor’s degree in any business related field
• 2-3 years’ experience in a fast paced environment
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel
• Experience working with Navision is a plus
• Experience working with a culturally and socioeconomically diverse workforce
• Ability to handle multiple high demand projects
• Good organizational and persuasive skills.
• Keen eye for detail
• Efficient report writing skills.
• Excellent writing and oral communication skills

You’re Also

• A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done.  You’re organized and responsive.  You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done.  You can multi-task dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details.  Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth company.
• A networking mastermind – You excel at meeting new people and turning them into advocates.  You communicate in a clear, conscientious, and effective way in both written and oral speech.  You can influence strangers in the course of a single conversation.  Allies and colleagues will go to bat for your ideas. 
• A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges.  On top of that, Bridge works in volatile, low-resource communities and runs on fees averaging just $6 a month per pupil.  You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand.  Every dollar you spend is a dollar our customers, who live on less than $2 a day, will have to pay for.
• A customer advocate – Our customers – these families living on less than $2 a day per person – never leave your mind.  You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future).  You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like.  Every decision you make considers their customer benefit, experience, and value.

• A life-long learner – You believe you can always do better.  You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others.  You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed today.