Chief Operations Officer (Education) at The People Practice

Summary

Our client is looking to hire a COO (Education) to oversee the coordination and administration of their organisation’s educational interventions including planning, organising, leading, and controlling programme activities. This role drives the administration of all the organisation’s schools and scholarship initiatives. This includes identifying and profiling beneficiaries, conducting periodic verification exercises, preparing and updating relevant databases, sourcing potential sponsors, monitoring & evaluating beneficiaries, and effectively communicating with relevant stakeholders.

Responsibilities

Facilitate Control of the School

• Supervise all teaching staff, rectify any flaws in the work-in-progress and facilitate necessary corrective measures.

Feedback/Effective Communication

• Collaborate with educators to receive ideas, suggestions, and complaints, with regard to managerial decisions.
• Facilitate the process of receiving feedback from school leaders and educators to the administrative office.
• Manage the School Leaders and receive regular feedback from them.

Programme Development

• Map and implement programs that would create opportunities for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) to learn in a fun-filled and interactive environment.
• Develop creative initiatives that will further the aims and objectives of the educational interventions of the Agency.
• Initiate partnerships with other NGOs, corporate bodies and government agencies, and develop proposals for strategic partnerships to sponsor the education of children in the programme.
• Devise a Standard Operating Procedure for establishing the organisation's Model.
• Arrange meetings for all beneficiaries and their caregivers at the end of each session.

Stakeholder Management

• Organise Sponsor/Beneficiary Meet & Greet events to create opportunities for sponsors to interact with their beneficiaries.
• Promote community ownership and participatory development by creating a forum of caregivers and relevant stakeholders in the community.
• Organise bi-monthly meetings where all stakeholders can come together to discuss pertinent issues.
• Pioneer Open Day events to create opportunities for parents to interact with the school and their children’s teachers.
• Initiate programs aimed at empowering and educating caregivers.

Database Management

Devise and maintain a database of existing/new sponsors, volunteers, beneficiaries (students) and educators.

Monitoring & Evaluation

• Partner with School Leaders and individual teachers to develop their teaching and learning practices.
• Conduct and document regular evaluations using standard Monitoring and Evaluation tools.
• Take charge of regular visits to assess all persons directly benefiting from the organisation’s educational interventions, and collate reports with recommendations and work plans.

Professional Development

• Establish inspiring and innovative resources for teachers and students; encourage and promote peer sharing; undertake sit-in observations and provide developmental feedback to teachers.
• Devise an annual curriculum alignment and review session.
• Customise coaching activities that comply with the curriculum and recommend areas for improvement in teaching and learning.
• Actively encourage the use of Information Learning Technologies and ICT.
• Share observed best practices with the teaching staff across all schools, attend weekly meetings with the teachers to discuss progress and report findings to the Executive Director
• Keep up-to-date with developments in teachings and learning practices within the education sector.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years in a similar role in the social development sector.
• Minimum of a First degree in Social Science or any Management Science discipline
• MBA or other related qualifications will be a huge plus.
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to facilitate diverse groups.
• Excellent negotiation and conflict-resolution skills
• Politically and culturally sensitive with qualities of patience, tact and diplomacy.
• A high level of written and spoken English.
• Demonstrable ability to work and represent views across different stakeholders.
• Experience in high-level coordination and chairing of meetings.
• Demonstrable understanding of international humanitarian response and coordination mechanisms.
• Experience in assessing Education Sector partners’ capacities to inform the development and rollout of capacity-building plans to improve the quality of the staff.

More on Skills

Accountability

• Holds self-accountability for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modeling organisations values.
• Holds colleagues accountable to deliver on their responsibilities.

Ambition

• Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and takes responsibility for their own personal development
• Widely shares their personal vision for the organisation, engages and motivates others
• Future-orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.

Collaboration

• Builds and maintains effective relationships with colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters.
• Values diversity, and sees it as a source of competitive strength.
• Stays approachable, listens and is easy to speak to.

Creativity

• Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions.
• Takes disciplined risks.

Integrity

• Honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates the highest levels of integrity.