Officer, IT Operations at Kwara State Government

About the Role

The Officer, IT Operations role combines the provision of front-line support and superior customer service to our schools and support teams with the responsibility for one of our key functional areas in IT Operations, including asset management, problem management, and support office support. The Officer role rotates between these functional areas, bringing fresh energy and insights to each area, while gaining experience over the different aspects required to ensure our Tech investments deliver on our ambitious mission. It will involve rolling up your sleeves to get the day to day done with ensuring overall delivery excellence for your assigned area.

The role reports to the Manager, IT Operations, who has broad oversight over the programme, and involves mentoring and developing Associates.
 

What You Will Do

• Ensure delivery against one of our key functional areas for IT Operations:
  • Teacher Tablets: ensuring high availability of teacher tablets, including proper assignment, monitoring, and troubleshooting.
  • Smartphones and Tablets - ensuring high availability of school leaders and field staff devices, including proper assignment, monitoring and management (mobile device management), and procurement.
  • Problem Management - ensuring that all Tech issues ("incidents") are properly tracked and regularly analysed to identify our key "problems" (recurring incidents) - and to work on sustainable solutions
  • Support Office Support: ensuring the support office is high-functioning - working IT Assets (laptops, printers, etc.), network, firewall, PBX, etc.
• Provide first point of IT support contact for all staff, covering all hardware, software, and associated peripherals.
• Proactively troubleshoot using reports and data analytic tools provided - and also contribute back to their evolution and improvement.
• Deploy IT assets and associated peripherals, including new installations and redeployment of existing equipment.
• Manage service desk tickets, planning and prioritising systematically to minimise backlog and ensure operational efficiency.
• Visit schools to understand pain points and receive feedback.
• Expedite the repair of hardware faults and software configuration problems, notifying or forwarding to the relevant suppliers in a timely manner.
• Supervise, train, and mentor junior staff members in all of the above.
• Provide technical assistance to project teams and undertake technical project roles when required.
• Demonstrate commitment to and promotion of a culture of service excellence and continual improvement within the IT Department.

What you should have

• A Degree from a recognised university with top marks in a relevant discipline
• Suitable IT/industry work experience
• Experience working within a fast-paced environment
• Excellent technical knowledge of IT hardware, including laptops, mobile devices (esp. Android), and peripherals
• Software and hardware troubleshooting ability
• Experience working and training on a variety of IT subjects and applications
• Analytical capability - ability to analyse data sets and be data driven. Advanced analytical capabilities, such as SQL, a plus.
• Strong writing and oral communication skills
• Research skills, including ability to identify and propose solutions to issues/crisis

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. You have an existing network from prior experience in the country, preferably in the regulatory, education, or business sectors.
• A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, KwaraLEARN works in often fragile, sometimes volatile low-resource communities and with complex government systems. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand.
• A relentless advocate –The children we serve and teachers we empower 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 benefit, experience,
  and value.
• A malleable 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.
• A data-driven decision-maker – When making decisions, you don’t rely on your intuition alone. You collect data, you analyze it and make decisions with clear justifications.
• A curious investigator – You ask why a lot. You don’t just take what you see and accept it. You wonder why it is that way, and are aware that the world we see is created by human choices and actions – and it could be different. You wonder, and see the world as wonderful even when you want to change a part of it that is unjust.